Speaker 1  00:00

Dean, welcome to the latest edition of the heart of franchising, where we take you behind the brand, to bring you the people, the stories and heart behind franchise success. This podcast is brought to you by home franchise concepts, one of the largest home services, franchise systems, which inspires franchise owners to achieve financial independence while transforming lives homes and the communities they serve. Today's guests are a husband and wife team. He spent most of his career in the corporate world in marketing at Western Union and later at Vail Resorts. After that, he realized corporate life wasn't for him anymore, and decided he wanted to be his own boss. She spent 16 years as a hair stylist and previously owned her own salon. After welcoming twin daughters, she transitioned to part time work and booth rental for a few years, but then tried to continue hairstyling and run their business, but that only lasted a few months with the success the new business was having. She stepped away from here and pulled her full attention into the business. Please join me in welcoming Paul and Catherine Jost, owners of kitchen, tune up of Denver and bath. Tune Up of Denver. Catherine and Paul welcome. Hi. Good to see you. Good to see you. So tell me a little bit about how you transition from corporate life and hairstyling, owning your salon to finding kitchen tune up as a franchise opportunity.

 

Speaker 2  01:31

Yeah, you know, I think it was as many of people that have made that transition before, like corporate world has changed over the last, you know, 2530 years, pretty dramatically, and I think that some of the allure of that kind of have worn off over time for me, and terms of seeing a lot of decisions being made there that had nothing to do with performance, but more about the bottom line, profitability and good people getting let go because of just financial decisions that the company had to make. And I mean, that might be true in all forms of business, but I think for me, on a personal level, it kind of started creating the the idea in my head that maybe there was something different. And so part of, part of that kind of self reflection that I did after I left Western Union was starting to think about, you know, would franchising be something I'd be interested in. And so I started exploring a little bit, took a job with Vail Resorts, kind of went through the same cycle again, and said, Okay, that's enough and and so I kind of went more ahead into it at that point in time, and kind of started working with the franchise broker to just explore different opportunities that made sense for me in terms of the type of business I was looking for. Awesome. Catherine, what would you add?

 

Speaker 3  03:08

You know, I am, I was, you know, hair was wonderful. It got me through college, and then I graduated college, and I just kept doing hair because I enjoyed it. I love the personal connection. But after three kids, you know, pregnant on your feet, there, it was always in my back, in my mind, that I'm like, I would love to use my degree or do something more. This is not a job that has longevity to it. So when Paul started looking at franchising, and I was like, Cool. Like, good for you. And then we stumbled upon kitchen tune up. He's like, if we do this, you have to be with it as well. He, at that point, didn't even know what a Shaker door was. So I was like, yes, absolutely. I will have to be involved with the business. And it was actually like, it was just this beautiful thing that all kind of went together, that I knew I wanted to do something. I never thought I could be in home remodeling or in the design world of that, but it's always been an interest. So it was just interesting on how it all transpired, how he was looking for something different. He found kitchen tune up, he brought me in, and it all kind of just worked out perfectly.

 

Speaker 1  04:18

That's awesome. So what was it specifically about this brand that stood out from other concepts that you evaluated?

 

Speaker 2  04:27

Yeah, I think, like, I knew that because I came from, like, a service industry, both, like Western Union and, you know, veil, while it was customer focused, so it wasn't like really B to B service, it was more consumer services. So I knew I knew I wanted something in the consumer service area. And, you know, when I was starting to kind of go through stuff, I think that, you know, there was a variety of criteria that I had a, you know, it had to be that kind of, you know, to consumer customer experience was a really big thing that I focused on in marketing. So I wanted something that kind of play. A two customer experience, and the brand identity and trust points that kitchen tune up had kind of already established made me kind of go like, that is a really, you know, remodelers. Yeah, there's a lot of bad remodelers out there, and this is a brand that's focused on changing that experience. So I think the brand kind of really connected with me in that way. And and, you know, just kind of hit on those services. And then probably the third piece was just really understanding the financials of it. I think there was a lot of stuff where, when I kind of dug into the financials through that kind of discovery process it, you know, to me, I could see, I could see it supporting our family the way that I wanted it to go, so yeah,

 

Speaker 3  05:43

and I'll piggyback off of that, I would say we've been through, you know, we've moved, how many different times, and we're huge into investing our own homes, because we enjoy, we feel like it is so cheesy, like, you know, the kitchen is the heart of your home. Kitchen. Tuna is where we started. And as a mother, I spent most my time in the kitchen. So it kind of hit that it's like the equity portion of it as well, that it's like we're able to create this amazing space for somebody, and then also create equity, because it's one of the top returns is this mid range kitchen remodel, and that's kind of what kitchen tune up focused on. So it was creating equity for homeowners, which was huge for us.

 

Speaker 1  06:23

Yeah, I love that. And I love that you focused in Paul kind of on that, that brand identity. Because certainly, kitchen tune up, certainly being, now a 30 plus year old brand, right? Certainly, certainly brought that for you, and kitchen being the heart of the home. I love that. That's great. So walk me a little bit through so you choose, chose kitchen. Tune Up. Now your your business owners. Walk me through a little bit of the ramp up. Talk to me about the support what, what did the kind of first, you know, 3060, 90 days into your business. What did that look like for you?

 

Speaker 3  06:59

We started in 2020, of January, February. So I think our situation was a little different than most people. So, you know, we bought this franchise. I quit my job, you know, we have, you know, and then all of a sudden, the world shut down. And it was really like a come to Jesus talk, like, Oh my gosh. What did we just do, right? Like, this is not good. And we had quite the opposite, as we all realize now that it was, you know, home remodeling was going to take off. So we our ramp up was really huge, but we could not have done it without our other owners in the area, especially Noah and the winters, who are adjacent neighbors. They were on speed dial. I mean, Noah came on our first measure appointment. I mean, it really we would have not had our ramp up if it wasn't for our fellow our neighbors and calling them on, I think, multiple times a day. So that's kind of like the first story, you know, that I think of it's like, oh my gosh. We had a crazy we just jumped right in. We launched

 

Speaker 2  08:05

right in the middle, right before covid hit, right? So it's kind of, it's crazy to think that, you know, some people are like, Oh my gosh. That like, how did you survive? And there's a lot of businesses, and obviously Home Improvement thrived in right covid. So it turned out being a blessing in disguise. And really, I think it allowed us, because there was such a pent up demand that kind of, like, exploded during the next like, you know, 18 months for us, it was more, I think, you know, there was two things. So Catherine talked a little bit about the support that we got locally from other franchise owners, and that's kind of really cool and unique about I think the kitchen tune up brand and the camaraderie that exists across franchise owners versus competitive like a competitive nature is more of like a camaraderie, and so I think that's really important. But then having, like, the franchise system that actually has a lot of the tools and systems in place, like I didn't have to develop pricing, I didn't have to develop our CRM, like being able to start using those things right off the bat to kind of meet the demand of what was happening in the market. That was really helpful, that I didn't have to create that from scratch, because I don't know if we would have been able to to capture the demand that was coming in without already having some stuff built, right? Yeah.

 

Speaker 1  09:24

I mean, certainly you have an amazing story to tell. You launched your business, and then obviously covid hit, but you were able to take advantage of that covid high, if you will, for home improvement. That's awesome. Tell me a little bit more about the tools that you mentioned for potential candidate listening. What were some of the tools that you were able to lean into, and what were maybe some of those tools then and maybe even now that really make the biggest difference to you and your business? Yeah.

 

Speaker 2  09:51

I mean, I think you know, if you were starting a new business, you have to kind of start from scratch, of like, okay, so what vendors are you going. Use. We didn't have to do that. There was already selected vendors and manufacturers that have been vetted, negotiated pricing already in place. Saves a bunch of time having to do that right? We have a CRM system that was already kind of working in the I'll call it just the the overall, like infrastructure of other tools and assets that we might use that could, you know, obviously capture new leads coming in and, you know, enable us to, you know, price and quote and do all that stuff and not have to build that from scratch. Those are all tools that still work for us, having, you know, marketing vendors that other franchises are already using. And so there's not necessarily, there's already, like, a brand knowledge set that's there that then you can leverage, and, you know, apply to your business. You know, there's, there's other kind of, I'll call it just operational tools of like, okay, so how do you do job costing? And you know, what are the ways that you would check your profitability on every job? Some of those things are already created in a way that, you know, yes, you still have to use them. You still have to do the inputs, but you know, it's, it's helping you think through the things that you need to be doing as a business owner. And I think those are just a few examples of things that we that I think are kind of values that, like, I didn't have to co create that might have taken me months to create. Instead, they're just there, right, right?

 

Speaker 3  11:35

And I think the training, I mean, when they they change the training program since we've started and starting bath tune up, we've kind of gone how they changed it now, but I would say just the start of it, you know, it's overwhelming, you know, to buy something. And so the training that we had when we started was phenomenal. Going to the location, hands on training, meeting the people that you are that are going to be supporting you, I think was, was tremendous. Also the onboarding training too. It doesn't, you know, it's not like you start go to training and they say, good luck. It's like you continually have training week, weekly calls. They have you stay in touch with your classmates that you went to so, you know. So you have those resources too, because you're kind of all in that same, you know, boat of starting a new, new business. So I think also the training that we had from the very start that was a amazing foundation to get things started with.

 

Speaker 1  12:35

Yeah, that's for sure. How is your role as an owner evolved since you launched your business because obviously you're you put on your owner hat when you first launched in 2020 and now it's 2026 what's, what's, what's changed? How have you evolved as an owner?

 

Speaker 3  12:51

I It's amazing, like we're in our home office right now, 2020 This is where Paul and I sat, and I got so sick of him. He got so sick of me. We're in this, what, you know, 12 by 15 room, you know. And basically it was awesome, because if I needed something, I would just be like, Hey Paul, you know. And we would just be right here. It's interesting how it's evolved over the years. Make sure you can't. There's a point where you can't do what worked last year, because you want to grow. And there's only there's only us. We've had a hard time letting go of certain roles because we feel like we can do it the best, right? And this is where we've gotten. So as the years, we've grown to just the two of us, and now we're up to 1212, employees. And so letting go of some of that has been very difficult, and trusting people that they are going to carry the torch, because, again, going back to the whole reason why we found kitchen tune up was this experience, right? This is our baby, and we really do care. These people have trusted us with a lot of money and being in their home. So it has evolved tremendously that we have to reevaluate, you know, how frequently to say, what do we, how do, how are we going to best be utilized in the company with still having growth and then hiring awesome people? Yeah, and

 

Speaker 2  14:12

I think, you know, like, probably my role, I would say, as you know, Katherine, probably, you know, leads up. I'll call it, like our design and sales, and then I kind of lead up everything else, everything else, yeah, you know, fill in the blanks. So I have a CEO hat, a CFO hat, CEO hat, right? But, but I think that, you know, over the the years, you know, we have a project manager. We have somebody that does ordering and measuring. We have, you know, installation guys. I was, I was never out in the field doing installation, but did I have to hang a door or two in beginning? Of course, right? So, of course, I'm not doing that anymore. My probably visits to job sites, or less. I'm more kind of like a GM inside of our showroom, kind of. Like, touching those different areas of, you know, general administration, to just overall operations and stuff like that. Probably Catherine, I would say, yeah, like her role has evolved. I mean, she's still sales and design. It's evolved in the sense that, you know, there's some more marketing elements that she's doing, and she has more of a sales team that, you know, so there's just more of, like, leading and coaching across like a sales assistant and a couple of designers that is evolved, you know, that's probably the big ways things have changed, or people

 

Speaker 3  15:29

always want. It's crazy when something does go wrong in a job that they always want to seek with the owner, you know, and it's like not stepping in, enabling our employees, our sales team, our install team, you know, enabling them. They can do it right, absolutely.

 

Speaker 1  15:45

Yeah. And what you said is so true. As you grow a business, you have to, at some point, you have to let go and trust. And it's funny, as you said, you know, this is your baby, like, this is your fourth baby. You you have three kids, and this is your, you know, I'm not going to, you know, rank them for you and where it fits and who you love the most I get I love the most, but you know, this is one of your babies, so at one point it may be the most important, but they're all full say, equally important. So I love that you definitely have to delegate and trust to your point, but no doubt that you have a customer to along the way that wants to speak to the owner, and you have to obviously figure out how, how to step in or not step in at any given time, right? What do you think are some characteristics that have helped you become so successful? And I'll start with you.

 

Speaker 2  16:35

Paul, well, I mean, I think that there's, I think franchise owners that have come in, because obviously, over the last, you know, six years, we've, you know, we've, we've talked to new owners coming in that were in our shoes at one point, right? And the ones that I think have succeeded, and what I think helped us succeed, is there is a certain amount of drive that the owners have, you know, they're kind of go getters, and they they, you know, they're very vested. They have a very strong vested interest in what they're what they're going after. That gets you so far right, but it is also an initial piece that is important. It takes a lot of work. It still takes a lot of work. In some ways, I could say, Catherine and I are working even harder now than when we first started. But there's just a drive and a care for that that I think has to be a fundamental piece. I think the the other kind of characteristic that kind of really helps is you're getting into a franchise system. When we got into it, it's like you can start your own business, or you can buy a franchise. And if you're buying a franchise, you want to tap into that all the franchise can offer you, right? And so there's support that you have from the franchise or but there's also support you have in learnings you can get from other owners. And so I think the ones that lean heavy into both of those areas, the true operators are out in the field, and then the support at the central you know, those are such critical things, like, why would you not use those resources if you're starting your own franchise. So I think that people that do that really well, what they end up doing is, I think they shorten their you're tapping into all this learnings and successes, and then you can still apply your twist in your company and in the company that you're running, but but you want to be able to tap into it allows you to shorten that, that ramp up and growth and so I think those are kind of like a couple things that I think made us successful, but I've also seen other owners that have joined become successful because they do that.

 

18:56

Well, awesome. Great. Catherine, what would you add?

 

Speaker 3  19:00

Yeah, yeah, I think Paul said it really well, and like, I think it was the drive, and we're both pretty competitive. And again, it's the people are trusting us with a lot of money, and we, we don't take that lightly, right? And I think that we take each job very seriously, big or small, and we want our customers to have a good experience. And that's something. Keeping that mission statement at the forefront, I think, has really made us successful in the fact that we have happy customers, and we get lots of referrals. So and again, being competitive like we don't do something right with the customer, going to them. Like, what could we have done to elevate this experience and listening to them and actually doing it? I think another big thing is the unit we've created. Again, I've talked about, like, how we've gotten bigger, but I think culture is a really important part of of the. Workplace, and I do feel like our our employees that work for us are happy, and we've created this kind of a cool culture that we have. We're kind of a misfit family, is what we call it, that our people, genuinely, I hopefully, like to work with us and creating this environment that they like to come to work for, you know, because they're going to be happy, and then their experience the customers is going to be great too. So I think it's the drive us, being competitive, and then, you know, focusing on our culture from the beginning of what we wanted to create of this, we didn't want to be these work horses, but at the same time, like we respect you, respect us, get your job done, we do a lot of fun things as well, with our with our employees.

 

20:41

That sounds amazing. I'm sure your misfit family is amazing as a unit. I love that,

 

Speaker 1  20:49

and I'm sure it translates to your success as well. And that leads me to my next question. Tell me about the award you received last year and the significance of it and how it made you feel.

 

Speaker 3  21:04

I mean, I by far. I mean, again, I It's our mission statement of, you know, it's all, it's the customer, right? And so it really was kind of the apex or the pinnacle, I feel like, of what Paul and I obviously, you do it for yourself, right? Because it's dollar signs for us, because we have more customers and referrals, but really to be recognized for it, and also we had no idea it was even going to happen, right? It was pretty amazing, and I will say it was definitely a core memory for me. And sometimes just getting that recognition of like as an owner, sometimes you feel like you're drug behind the truck, and, you know, you get some crazy customers. But it was all like, oh my gosh, this is amazing, that you're getting recognized by by your franchise. And also, there's amazing franchise owners out there too, that, you know, we're competing with, I think some of the best too. Talking with the other owners, there's some amazing owners, so the fact that we got it was was pretty incredible.

 

Speaker 1  22:06

That's awesome. And for our listeners, the just were Customer Service Award winners of the year. If I'm getting the award name right, correct me if I'm wrong, yeah, Service of the Year. So congratulations on that. Well deserved. I'm going to shift us a little bit into kind of the economic indicators for your business. Tell me a little bit about what you watch to know economic indicators that you watch to know the health of your business, just not, just not top line revenue. What are some of the things that you watch and what's important to you as a business owner, so that you know that your business is healthy,

 

Speaker 2  22:42

yeah, I mean, I think probably there's some macro and then some micro. So the macro piece is more, you know, talking like so in remodeling, some of the kind of key people that we might partner with are going to be people like realtors that have clients that bought house or selling a house and they needed a remodel. So talking to them, as well as lenders in there, I keep a good touch base with a couple of key ones in Denver to understand, like, what's happening at the macro level buying and selling of real estate here. How are the interest rates trending. There is some stuff that, you know, what fee what is happening in their space does have a trickle effect down into remodeling? So, so there is a little tiny bit of that that we kind of, like, you know, pay attention to, I think at the micro level, it's, you know, on a monthly basis, you know, I'm meeting with our accountant to kind of go through all of our financial statements and kind of making sure that we're looking at things from cash flow to top and bottom line, you know, expenses and just how they're they're trending, and making sure that year over year, month to month, all that kind of stuff is making sense. And then probably even, like deeper into that. We, I talked about it earlier. We, we do job profit tracking on every job. And so, you know, we're always looking to to make sure that those are staying healthy and in the right space. And so, you know, and how do they, they match up with other franchises, right? So that's a benefit again. Of some of the tools that we have is that we can kind of compare, contrast how we're trending versus, you know, some of the top performers and inside of our franchise network. So there's, there's, those are kind of some macro and micro things that we are, I guess, paying attention to, to just understand where we've been, but also what might be kind of coming down the pipeline when when you look at the macro side of things, that's great.

 

Speaker 1  24:48

Paul, you mentioned that you can compare with other franchisees, which obviously is a huge benefit, is that something that's done on a formal basis, more informal like you have, you just touch base with franchisees. How does that work?

 

Speaker 2  25:00

Yeah, there's a couple different ways that that happens. So, you know, there is a tool that's provided by the franchise that is called profit keeper, which is a tool that all of our financials go into. And you can pull reports, and you can do compares and contrast with people of like size and stuff like that inside the franchise system. The franchise also provides, like, a quarterly report that is, you know, going to benchmark you. Well, they have standard benchmarks, but then it benchmarks you against the top 20 performers in the franchise, top 50, and then the balance. So you can kind of see against key metrics how you're doing. So those are some of like, the more standard things, the more informal things, like, you know, some of the franchises and like people that are similar sizes as before in a mastermind group. So the mastermind group is one that meets on, say, cadence of every couple weeks. And we actually, you know, track some of our key, you know, KPIs that each of us are finding important. And so we have, I have yet another benchmark that I'm tracking with them, and then we have more organic conversations about, what are the opportunities and challenges that we're seeing, and like, how are each of us tackling them? So you kind of have a little bit of different ways you can go about it.

 

Speaker 1  26:18

Love it. Love it. Mastermind group and the benchmarking from your home office. I love that. Talk to me a little bit about why you believe this franchise kitchen tune up and bath tune up, which you added on a few years after buying kitchen tune up. Why do you believe either of these brands make for a great family business opportunity? Obviously, his husband and wife, and obviously, potentially, have other members of your family as part of the business. Tell me a little bit about who else is involved and why this makes for a great family business.

 

Speaker 2  26:53

Well, it's just the two of us as of now, we have daughters, but they're only 11, so I think

 

Speaker 3  26:59

hard, but we bring them in. You know, they've they've done they've stuffed packets before, they have gone. They've even been in some marketing material.

 

Speaker 2  27:09

They've upgraded videos and stuff like that. So they actually have done a few things.

 

Speaker 3  27:15

Yeah, no, but I think it's at even as a husband and wife. I actually think it's some people like, I can't believe you can work with your husband, you know, like, Oh my gosh. How do you do this? It's a it again. We've never owned another business, so it's hard to compare and contrast. But I think it's a business that you can we have, we set rules of like, this is what you do, this is what I do. We've made it an active discipline to not try not to talk about it at the dinner table. You know, even though I think my kids know more about cabinets and cabinet parts than most of their kids at school, but I think it's amazing my kids are like, they're like, when they found out that we were business owners, and especially when they found out that I was a business owner, when they were like, Oh, who's your boss? I'm like, I'm my boss, right? Like, and they're like, that's so cool, right? And so to show this generation, and especially your kids, like, and we joke, like, who's going to take over kitchen, tune up, who's going to take over bath, tune up. And we joke, we need to have one more brand so the third child can be left with something. But it's for sure, because, again, it's in your home, right? And it can, it can correspond, because we were in a home, and it's, it's very, it's very special to us, so,

 

Speaker 2  28:27

but, you know, I think if, like, you know, for Catherine and I, because when we were kind of exploring concepts, it kind of touched upon stuff that, like, resonated with us, like individually, like remodeling, bringing value to other people's houses and stuff like that. I think those connection points also just make things stronger and better and easier. It like, you know, there's almost like a common vision and purpose that, like, we both have that is aligned, and so that kind of makes it easier to make it a family run business. Makes it, you know, in in the peaks and valleys of being a business owner like it kind of pulls us through those valleys. And so, you know, whether or not our kids are going to want to do that, we'll see they got a little time.

 

Speaker 1  29:19

You definitely have a little time for that. And definitely, I'm sure the third daughter, we can definitely find another brand if the two of you have not chosen a third brand by then, and I will say I've definitely heard from husband and wife teams that they do try to avoid business conversation at the dinner table, especially like holiday dinners. But have you ever broken that rule?

 

Speaker 3  29:42

Oh, absolutely. Because I think when you're a business or you're just it's ingrained in you. Again, it's another child, right? Like we in here, we do it, but again, with those boundaries that we set on at the workplace, he's in the completely opposite end of the showroom. I'm on the opposite end, you know, we try, you know, to set the boundaries at work. So sometimes at home, it's the first time we've kind of seen each other all day. So de kind of loop, yeah, but no, absolutely, it's, we try not to, but we've, we've broken that rule far too many times.

 

Speaker 1  30:17

I say it in jest, but obviously all of it has contributed to your success. So I think that's great. Um, tell me a little bit about how have, how have you seen your business positively impact your local community?

 

Speaker 2  30:31

You know, I think what I what I would say is, I think there's, there's been times like, you know, I still think there's more opportunity for us to even do it more. But I think that Catherine, I try to take time each year to give back in different ways. We do get back to, like our kids go to school and try to, you know, participate with some of the fundraising things that they're doing there, some of the other kind of things that they do for the needy there. I think there's a little bit of that that we try to do. We've kind of found some customers. This is Cool story that we had about a couple years ago where there was a customer that she was like, giving away, like, she, you know, she, she didn't have a whole lot of money, but she was, like, literally taking her own money and creating, buying a bunch of food, and, like, cooking for homeless people. And so it was something that we thought was, like, so cool. We literally, you know, decided to kind of gift card her, like, I think it was like $1,000 during like, you know, the the holiday season, so that she could actually not have to use her own money to to basically do what she she likes to do. And it was a fun thing to kind of like, you know, create that opportunity for so I think sometimes you have to find some of those moments where you can kind of, you know, do it. I think we still have some opportunity to kind of tap into ideas from our employees, also, of like, things that they would like to do in the community, that we could do as the employer, right? I think that's probably an area of thing we haven't fully flushed out, but we've talked about, and I think those are ways that you can, you know, you just, you just ingrain yourself a little bit more,

 

Speaker 1  32:16

for sure. And I love that story you share. So thanks for sharing that, Paul. So couple questions, and then I'll close this out. What's your favorite part about owning kitchen, tune up and bath tune up?

 

Speaker 3  32:29

Oh my gosh. Well, there's so many. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind, and would be the reunions, I guess we now call them conventions. Um, I think it's one of because it's like, you get everybody together. We're jazzed about our business with it's a time to fill your bucket, right? That the learning, you know, I think that's the connection that you meet new owners, and you talk to people that we've known from the beginning. And obviously there's lots of fun involved too. And so I come back recharged and excited. You know, I think owning the business for so long, you kind of get a slump a little bit. You're like, Okay, well, like, but it's a, it's a way to recharge the batteries a little bit on how they do it, and just the other owners, I that's, it's one of my top faves. I mean, that's the first thing that instantly came to mind. I think, you know,

 

Speaker 2  33:21

you know, we've seen a lot of it kind of come through this year, and obviously we got recognized for it last year. But I think the customer feedback piece is also just it. You know, we don't sell widgets, right? So this is we're selling on a service that is high value, highly emotional for customers. And so when we get it right, and we get we hear that from our customers, and it comes through in our customer reviews and things of that nature. That is a it's a pretty fulfilling piece of the business where you're kind of like, you know, that's kind of, like, one of the reasons why we got in so it's good to, like, see that we're still, like, hitting on those things as we've grown in size. I love that part, no?

 

Speaker 3  34:03

And that's a great one. We had one customer that, like, she was just a nervous wreck, like, the whole time she was so nervous. She was like, do I pick the right color? Like she was crazy, just she was getting in her own mind. And then I My favorite thing is to see at the end, right? Because I sell it right. I'm selling this vision of what it can look like. So to go into the end to say, oh my gosh, show off your kitchen. This is so beautiful. And she started crying when at the end, and she goes, you've created such an amazing space for me. This is right before the holidays. She's like, I am getting all my kids, actually, it's the first time in years they're all going to be under one roof. And she goes, I love this kitchen. Like it was just like, I got chills. I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, you know, he's

 

34:45

got goosebumps.

 

Speaker 3  34:49

Thank you for creating this space, you know, and being there with me that all the, you know, during the middle, I was like, Oh my God, this lady's crazy, but it was so rewarding. At the end. Where it was, like, this is cool, right?

 

Speaker 1  35:02

Yeah, yeah, as I said when I kind of did the introduction, like, we as home franchise concepts and all of our brands, like, we do transform lives, and you transform lives at kitchen tune up in Denver. Like, that's what you do every day. And what you shared Paul and what you shared Catherine, like, I just it didn't give me it gave me goosebumps. I love it. Well, I have my last question that I like to end with, and I'll ask each of you kind of what comes, comes to your mind in your heart first, what's at the heart of franchising? For you,

 

Speaker 2  35:33

the piece for me that like kind of hits, is, you know, I wanted to do something different from corporate. I wanted to build something that I I could control, manage, you know, create what I wanted from my, you know, for my family. And I think franchising kind of provided that for me in a way that I could do it in a quicker way than if I would have done it myself. Gave me kind of more confidence, if you will, that I could do that. So that kind of, to me was I probably, you know, as I reflect on like, what is at the heart of it, I think it's like when you when you know, if you're if you're somebody that is looking for a new opportunity. The idea of starting something completely by yourself kind of scares and feels daunting. I think that's where franchising really can kind of bridge that gap and give you the confidence and the tools don't get there. There's our dog saying he agrees. He agrees.

 

Speaker 3  36:39

Love it. I you know, it's the confidence. I think that was a thing even you know, going back all the way at the beginning of we bought in such a crazy time, there was a confidence that we what we bought into with franchising was the support from home office, from the other members, other this proven process that has, that has worked, right? And I think that's the biggest thing, because I, as much as I started my own salon, it was me, myself, and I right. It was like, I didn't bring home. And so once he said he wanted to do a franchise, I wasn't scared. I wasn't because it's like, there's, we're not starting it on our own. These they work right?

 

Speaker 1  37:25

Love that well. Thank you so much. And thank you Paul and Catherine for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I have. And thank you to our listeners, I hope you learned a thing or two about the heart of franchising with kitchen tune up and bath tune up to learn more about kitchen, tune up and bath tune up, or any of our home franchise concepts, Family of Brands, please visit home franchise concepts.com. I hope you'll listen next time when we talk to another guest and get to the heart of franchise success. See you next time on the heart of franchising.