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welcome to the latest edition of the heart of franchising, where we take you behind the brand. To bring you the people, 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. I'm Marcy Klein saucer, your podcast host, before purchasing his franchise, my guest today spent 25 years in corporate America. 23 of those years were with International Paper. He led the structural engineers for the corrugated division for North America in his current franchise. He focuses on overall business leadership, selling, negotiating and ensuring quality operations and customer relationships outside of work. He enjoys travel, food, good wine. Man, after my own heart and working out and his family, his son also works in the business with him. Welcome to the heart of franchising podcast, Roger, reader, owner of light speed restoration of North Nashville and West Nashville. How you doing? Roger? Doing well. Thank you. Awesome. Well, thanks for being here. I kind of give a little introduction, but give us a little bit more history about how you found Lightspeed restoration your territory, and what you like about being a lightspeed restoration franchise owner.

 

01:35

I left the corporate world and ventured back to Nashville, which was home to be around family and friends, and it gave me an opportunity to kind of reassess and think about what I might want to do. And after speaking with several people, I spoke with a gentleman who who directed me towards you may want to think about franchise, a franchise a lot of people, you know, in their upper 40s, which is where I was. You know, might be in a position where they can venture into something with direct ownership, run your own business. And franchising was a route that the gentleman directed me towards. And I met with a franchise broker, which was new, new to me. I never thought I wanted to run my own business. And what the broker did, which many people that you know come into franchising go through this process, is they brought me several opportunities after doing an assessment of my kind of interest and strengths and the ways I like to work. And you know, out of about 150 questions, brought in seven to 10 different franchises that might fit fit me and the things that I enjoy doing and the

 

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types of customers that I might want to be around.

 

02:54

After looking at seven to 10 businesses, I narrowed it down to three, and my family had been in construction contractors,

 

03:03

and I understood the structural side of building fairly well. Being in Nashville, the mold and water side of of being core to this business, fit really well, because the market it's pretty strong here. The need is here, the demand. And one of the key things to me was the ability to grow without having to

 

03:29

to build up a new facility. And so the ability to get in, you know, from the beginning and then grow over time was appealing. No bricks and mortar, so to speak. Other than, you know, we do have a warehouse in place, so everything seemed to kind of fit the margins on the business were appealing. The ability to grow something and be successful and transition that on to my son was appealing.

 

03:57

So all that led me to selecting advanta clean at the time, and we've been in business now for 13 years. And the things I like about the most are,

 

04:08

I think one of the things I like about it a lot is you, you bring a solution to customers that you have a line of sight on finishing. You know, you come in, it takes a week, it takes three days. It takes two weeks. But you're solving a problem for someone. And you know, if you deliver good, good operations, strong operations and good customer service, it tends to you end up with happy customers. So there's a there's a beginning and end that is much more appealing than having come from the corporate world, where something starts and you might finish it a year and a half from now, and by the time you finish it, it's changed 10 times. And, you know, the customers sometimes have changed. So it's, I don't know,

 

04:52

this, the the

 

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ability to find solutions and make someone happy within a short time frame.

 

05:00

It is. It brings rewards. It brings a lot of fulfillment. That doesn't always happen. You know, in my prior world, there are a lot of positives to the prior world as well, and being in a corporate environment, but I think at this point in my life, being able to control the situation and being able to lead a small group and satisfy the needs of the types of customers that we have has worked out really well for me. Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that history. So Roger, you've been in business for 13 years. For our listeners who don't know all of the services that Lightspeed restoration provides, give us a little bit of background. You mentioned, obviously different timeframes that you can work with customers. Just give us kind of the baseline of, if I don't know what Lightspeed restoration does, give me kind of the the background on Lightspeed restoration, I think, as a brand, being 24/7 water is is right at the core of what we're delivering to the marketplace.

 

06:03

From that, you have other areas of home, services such as mold. If you have water issues, you can tend to have mold issues if you wait too long to take care of it. We have a lot of proactive services where we deliver ways to prevent water intrusion so it branches out. So you've got water and mold at the core of our business. And then different territories have different things in their marketplace that may, that may provide opportunities, such as in the in the southeast, many areas have Radon is is of concern, and so it's another home service that tends to be in a crawl space in a basement where we are tend to be looking and so we're able to provide multiple services aside of just water and mold that tend to be needed by our customers. So it offers a bundling opportunity for us. So we provide moisture protection via encapsulation, which is barriers in crawl spaces

 

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and a whole gamut of range of different encapsulation offerings depending on what the customer needs. We provide dehumidification in crawl spaces and basements. We provide

 

07:21

sealant services, where we seal basement walls, so it all gets back to that core of water, typically, other than you know, radon is, is not water, but it is. It's one of those things affecting your home that that, if you're not aware of, could, could cause, cause your family harm, obviously. So we also do

 

07:45

sanitization type work. We work in the mold, the fire, excuse me, the fire and soot, fire and odor, which you know typically does end up having a water associated with it, because the fire department comes

 

08:00

in and puts it out. So most things back into water, and yet, many times, air de cleaning and radon fall in there as additional things and services that we can bring to our customers and set that they need. And we do it well, and it helps to diversify our business so that we're not always doing water. We're not always doing a cross based mold job. Your team members don't want to be doing the same thing every day. So by offering a myriad of services, we keep them satisfied and going into different environments doing different things, which is helpful when you're

 

08:38

when you want to bring in folks to work in our in our business, if all you did was go into crawl space and do motor mediation, you you may not have very good you would have high turnover. You may not be able to keep, keep your employees as long so that's been, sir, you get back to the question of, what are the services that we offer? And that's pretty much it, except for the fact that with with a with a renewed focus in 23

 

09:08

via light speed restoration on water, we've increased our mix to include more and more water. We as a result of that, we're we have brought on the ability to do repairs and reconstruction that's become a huge part of our business, and it's very different than, you know, responding to someone's problem with mold and water. Not only you're doing that, you're also bringing them back to the way they were before, and perhaps many times better than they were before. So it's, it's a whole different element of customer service. You're dealing with the esthetics of things, as opposed to just repairing something that was broke.

 

09:46

And I think for me, it's brought another element of customer satisfaction that we can deliver, that

 

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not only is needed, it also.

 

10:00

Provides a one stop shop for customers. It provides a whole new area of revenue stream for us. And it quite honest, quite honestly, it's what's helping us grow our top line that's great. A couple questions for you in terms of on the customer side, and then I want to get into kind of your team and how you like what how you run your business. So how do customers typically find you? Is it typically through an emergency situation, and then they can add this scheduled services that you mentioned, or vice versa? Talk to me a little bit about how customers are finding your business. It's it's a probably a little bit of both. But having been in business for 13 years are we have developed relationships with plumbers, with insurance, with real estate agents, with word of mouth from from customers in general. And you know, 80% of our business is organic. I mean, we, we've developed which you that's the point at which you you feel confident that you've got a viable business when your your majority of your customers are coming from your prior customers and your prior partnerships.

 

11:12

So I think your question is, is, how are customers coming to you? The emergency side of it, we're still reaching. We're still using, you know, trying to use our social, social platforms to pull in new customers. Because when you've got a water emergency,

 

11:30

you're it's a frenzy situation. It's chaos, and you're trying to find who does this. And sometimes you don't think, or you don't call your mother and say, Who have you ever used for water? You go to Google, or you go to, you know, some platform and start to search, and so we are doing, you know, the other 20% of our business is probably tied to half our emergency jobs, because those are new customers that we find or that find us, because we're putting ourselves out there in a visible way, via the internet? Sure. Yeah, I would imagine a new friend. So let me ask you it this way, a new franchisee or a prospective franchisee that's looking at this industry and looking at light speed restoration specifically, do you find that when you're having conversations with them, that that's a concern of them, and it is, what? What do you tell them in terms of how they would best launch their business? If you've been in business for 13 years, someone coming in and they're new, what would you tell them? I typically flip that 8020 to 2080 because you, you've you've gotta hit the ground. You've gotta, you've gotta build your you know that 80% that we get of organic didn't just happen overnight. You have to develop it. And although we are a franchise business and we all support each other, you're, you're building your territory. And so when you, when you start up, connecting with someone who can help you with social platforms. Is very important, starting to develop a routine of going after certain partners, like plumbers and real estate and plowing that field. If you you've got to do some plowing in the beginning, it is any any business you can't just walk in and turn the light, turn the lights on, and it's all a sudden successful. It comes down to you and your people, and your ability to market your business and target those those partners and those customers that they're going to remember you because you've reached out to them, and you've gone back to them a month later and you've said, these are the things we do, give us a chance. And I think everybody's different,

 

13:45

personally and professionally, and it takes, it's very important coming in in the beginning as a new franchisee, to understand you're, you're going to have to wear a bunch of hats, and if you don't, for example, if you don't have the this outgoing personality that likes to go and target business, then you need to partner yourself with someone who does whether they whether they are a business partner outside of your business, or someone you bring in to market your business.

 

14:15

That's one of the most critical things in the beginning, is figuring out how you get customers and

 

14:22

the business the franchise organization at home, franchise concepts, Lightspeed restoration, does a really good job of helping you understand these are the types of people you should be targeting, and this is how you target and with folks that come out, whether it be a franchise owner or someone from the home office, that that come in and help you to develop that marketing plan, that strategy that helps you to start gaining business. Yeah? So it's that 8020 flip, right? Exactly?

 

14:50

Yeah, that's great. Talk to me a little bit about that support you mentioned. So as you launched your business 13 years ago, and then throughout the course of your business, through today, tell me a little.

 

15:00

About the support from your home office team first, and then talk to me after that about the support you lean on from your fellow franchise owners, Roger. How has that kind of helped you throughout the years? And how do you lean into that today? When I bought into the franchise business, I expected homogeneous setup, where what I'm doing here and what I'm what they're doing in California and what they're doing in Texas is all going to be very similar. And with, for example, water and mold as the core business that we all perform, that wasn't the way it was. But once we were purchased by JM families, which is our current ownership, and HFC, you start, I started to see this direction that looked more like what I bought into, which is a franchise, whether it's here, there or somewhere else, is going to have similar systems, is going to have similar core businesses. It's going to have similar processes and

 

16:03

over time, over the last two or three years, that shift from atvanic Leon to light speed for me, for example, has put me in a position where I thought I was coming into 13 years ago. It truly is a network of of homogeneous owners, some might do a little more water than others, some might do a little more restoration than others, but the it everyone is doing,

 

16:34

both every everything has that. Everyone has that core set of things that they're doing in order to be successful. And the home office is helping in ways of if you just really good at water and mold, let's help you to understand how you integrate restoration and repair into your business so that you can be a 24/7 full service restoration company. And that's been the big difference today versus then, is having a network of folks who come out in the field, who talk to you over the phone, who meet with you regularly in zoom calls to talk about how successful one operation might be at encapsulation and another might be really good at restoration. And then we lean on each other and we learn from those best practices. So it feels much more coordinated and much more

 

17:29

focused on the things that can make a franchise successful, versus more of a lonely, Lone, loner environment. And you know, having people or not people, franchise owners, all doing different things, you know, some not doing water at all was, you know, so when you have that, you it's not really like a franchise, it's it's a lot of different individual owners, some of which are very successful. But if you're new coming in, and you want to lean on the 25 owners and learn from them on how to do water, and half of them don't do water. That's not very

 

18:10

comfortable. It's not a comfortable feeling. So I don't know if I'm saying this exactly the way I should. I appreciate everyone that I've come across from day one, and I've learned from different people, but I do know that now, over the last two to three years, I am part of an organization that's going to be successful at 24/7 water that's going to provide you the systems and necessary support, both informational systems as well as operating systems and marketing support to be successful, you still got to lead it and make it happen, but the infrastructure is there, right? That's great. No thanks for sharing that. And I think that's super helpful, that you can share kind of how you're leaning into the franchisees, and how all the franchisees are kind of lifting each other up and leaning into, you know, who's doing what service as well, or you know how you're asking questions, maybe when you feel like you're not doing something as well as you could be. So that's really helpful. What are some trends right now in your industry? Maybe that

 

19:14

make it a good time to get into light speed restoration? In your opinion? I don't

 

19:21

know if this is common for everyone, but a trend that I have found is being

 

19:29

able to come in and solve the full service solution for

 

19:36

small to mid size projects, being very nimble and able to do that, it has opened up a lot of opportunities for us. An example of that is,

 

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you know, maybe I have a business partner that that what they do causes some damages in homes, and sometimes that leads to mold or water, and we are able to very quickly come in.

 

20:00

And on our mold and water side,

 

20:03

solve the issue, and very quickly come in with our repair side and bring solutions, you know. And what I found is general contractors who do home make, you know, homes and things there aren't. They aren't interested in these small one offs. They're interested in larger projects, and it's kind of found, it's like a niche that we have found that we can't keep up with, quite honestly, and the more when I talk to other franchise owners, there are definitely some that are doing the exact same thing, and it also provides in our business,

 

20:44

having a group of people that are multi versed in both mold, water and repair allows you to flex those people in order to optimize their hours. In our business, you know, sometimes it doesn't rain for a month, and so you may not have a lot of water intrusion issues. And so let's say that if that side of the market's a little slow and and because there's not a lot of water, maybe we don't have a lot of mold. Well, we've got these repairs, and we've got guys that, you know, they may not be able to build a structure, but they can sure help and assist. So it helps me to ensure that my employees have

 

21:24

have enough hours to satisfy, you know, them and keep them, you know, gainfully employed.

 

21:32

I don't know if that perfectly answers what you're looking for, but

 

21:36

keeping and keeping your employees happy, finding good employees and keeping them is one of the top challenges in our in our business,

 

21:46

and then having enough business, you know, to keep them happy, keep your top line growing, or challenges so that niche that I've described is allowing us to do that. Talk to me a little bit about that, Roger, in terms of, like, how big is your team? How much time are you spending on, kind of like, team, leadership, Team recruiting, you know, for someone again, considering a light speed restoration, and they're kind of on the fence, you know, what do they need to be successful around? Kind of that kind of team recruiting management side that you just mentioned, depending on your market, and what's available in your market, and what the labor labor is will drive part of that decision. We've tried everything. We've tried recruit, you know, different recruitment companies, and

 

22:36

quite honestly, have not been all that successful with that. What we have found is being alert with your relationships. My answer to that is that it is a huge challenge, and it's not to be dealt with lightly, because if you don't have anybody to do the work that you need to do, you're going to be you're not going to be successful. And so

 

23:01

I think that you have to be creative in finding those people. And my of my my team, I have I five and one started today

 

23:14

and came from a vendor who,

 

23:17

who, who's slowing down their business, and there's not enough hours for that, for that employee. And so he had worked with us a few times when he needed some extra hours. And so he we just happened upon him, you know, and are we're always open to, hey, if you need more hours, come, come see us. And by doing so, he developed friendships with the team members and felt comfortable with him, and

 

23:42

he's going to be a huge addition to our team. Literally, we had an emergency job, and the kid across the street during covid, what couldn't, couldn't do his training for the business he was going to get into. And we said, you want to work with us a couple of weeks, but he's been with us for four years, and I love that, it, it, it, you got to be creative. You've got to use a lot of different methods, but being alert and being ready to seize upon opportunity has been successful for us. And you know, you're going to go through a lot of people. You know, this, this workforce that we have today,

 

24:26

the book, the cover on the book, is not obvious until you open the book up and you you're going to go through a lot of people, but once you find someone that that fits, you know, the the top the two guys that I have of the 13 years. Well, once my son, so he's kind of been with me for 13 years. Another has been with us almost 12 years. And this is their career. This is the business they want to be a part of. And when you have new people come in and they see 1112, year veterans of your business, and they see that they're satisfied.

 

25:01

Yeah, it means it makes a big difference. Yeah, that speaks volumes. So talk to me a little bit about how you feel about a family business. I love that your son works with you. Is this the first time that you've had that you've worked with members of your family and for someone that's considering that, what's the pros and the cons of that?

 

25:21

Yeah, well, I grew up. My dad was a contractor, and so during the summers, I had to work with him, and I would say that that motivated me to want to do it. I didn't want to. I didn't enjoy it. And, you know, so but once I, you know, as I said, of being in the corporate world for 25 years, when I left it. One of the things that I couldn't I wanted to ensure was that my child, my son, one of the most important things for me to find, find a way for to help him find success, both financial and personal success,

 

26:02

going forward, I you know, you always want to take care of your children and make sure that their life is as good, if not better, than yours. And so it was very important to me when, when buying into the franchise concept, that one of the biggest things, or probably the most important thing was to build it so that that he could be successful.

 

26:24

Quite honestly, when you know, at 47 or 48 when I did this, I had already been successful. If you had, if you weren't successful, you wouldn't be able to buy into this kind of business. So not bragging, but I'd already, I felt like I had already made my success, and that my next goal was to make you know, not only you know from age 47 to maybe 61

 

26:46

provide for my family, but more importantly, create something that could be passed along that would allow him to be equally, if not more successful. I love that well. I think that definitely proves that this could be a great family business for someone who's considering Lightspeed for Lightspeed restoration with and for their family.

 

27:10

A few more questions, Roger for you, and then you can tell me, if I've missed a question you think I should ask you, what are your goals for your business in the next five years?

 

27:22

The next five years, my goal is, is to continue to build top line revenue, which we're this year we'll have our second best year of the 13 years.

 

27:34

Continue to create segments within our business that are that that can be propped up and be

 

27:43

ongoing and be successful.

 

27:47

My goal is to,

 

27:49

within three years, create enough infrastructure to support my son and balance the business out so that it's not totally on his shoulders.

 

28:03

I, all of us have different strengths and weaknesses, and mine might be

 

28:09

top line revenue and

 

28:13

operational excellence well, but I might not really be that great at selling, or I might not really be that somebody else might not be that great at at the financial side. So I'm looking at the business and figuring out, well, here's here's where my son's strengths are. If these are challenges, how do we improve those challenges or compliment him with business partner who's who can help the both of them be successful in running the business. So I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but my goal is to transfer this business to my son in a very,

 

28:53

I won't say easy to run, but a very doable operation.

 

28:59

And you know, when, when you're running one of these businesses, and you like, I said, I have five people and myself and and this, the things that are on my shoulders are, I understand them really well, but I've gotta be able to, I've gotta be able to pass those on and allow either my son or someone else to manage those parts of the business, because I'm not going to continue doing it, you know, after about five years. So I want to be able to

 

29:24

provide a platform for success, so that, that is my biggest goal. But I also want to deliver that in in about one and a half times or more the revenue that we're bringing in today. So and we're doing already doing, luckily, my son is strong on the sales side and the relationship side, and so part of our success this year has been because of his efforts, and the more that I am able to allow him to be successful at that, as opposed to just stop. You know, he's split between operations and that the top line will.

 

30:00

Grow accordingly. So, so that's that gets back at, you know, so revenue growth and infrastructure to support when I'm not here 160%

 

30:11

of the time right now, well, I love that you're balancing kind of the strengths and weaknesses of both, you know, your your strengths and weaknesses, to your son's strengths and weaknesses, and then setting up your infrastructure so that you can step away and and be able to turn it over to your son, you know, more full time, to the point I love that lofty goals, but no doubt, based on your growth trajectory, that you'll be able to achieve them. How has this business changed your life? In the beginning, it was extremely challenging, and sometimes success was difficult to see, and yet, never, I say, never,

 

30:50

I never. I never gave up. I just had moments of of where the challenge was so huge that I wasn't sure how I was going to get there. But you know what? At those points in times, you got to dig deep and you got dig deep, and you got to

 

31:05

reach out, and you got to use other owners, and you've got to think differently. If something's not succeeding, there's a reason. And if other people are succeeding and you're not, you need to figure out how to how to make that happen. So over time,

 

31:21

the the this business has brought me full circle in realizing that if it's going to happen,

 

31:31

you're going to have to lead it, and then you're going to have to make that happen. You're going to have to step out front, and you're going to have to take full ownership for everything. And that may sound daunting to someone coming in as a new franchise owner, but it's, it's pretty critical if you're going to run your own business, you know the cash is one of the biggest things I speak to is, and I always heard in the corporate world that cash is key. Well, in the corporate world, in a big corporate business, cash usually come. They figure out a way to find cash, and you know, it's going to be an ongoing business. And you don't have much doubt about that. Well, when you're running your own business, cash really is key, and managing AR and managing

 

32:08

the business opportunities that you have, commercial versus residential can be a challenge, and you just got to be thinking about keeping your employees happy

 

32:18

and managing top line revenue and cash flow.

 

32:21

So over time, I think it's helped me to take on more responsibility and be more effective at success. And the things that I measure success against, I think I've been able to figure out how to dig deeper

 

32:41

and to

 

32:43

not allow the

 

32:47

hurdles to be so high that you can't overcome them.

 

32:52

And you know, I'm at a point now where I've got to transfer that strength to the team

 

33:02

so that that, you know, with a little help from me, ongoing, you know, that they start to be able to see that in themselves. Absolutely, I think maybe that's the biggest thing I've learned from it. Had I stayed in the corporate world, you know, we were, I was doing well, and I could have continued to do well, but I don't know that I would have challenged myself the way that I have. It's almost like you had to a rebirth. You know, it was in that one company for 23 years of that 25 and you build that, that's like a building block, and you continue to build and build, and you stagnate sometimes, but then you continue to build. But in in this business, it's like, it's like it in some ways, it's like starting over, and yet, it's not because you're using the things that you've learned over time. And that's perhaps one of the things I'd say to a new franchise owner, is you've gotten where you are because you were successful. You just have to figure out how to apply those characteristics and things that allowed you to be to succeed in whatever kind of business you were in,

 

34:09

in a different trajectory, a different platform, a different type of business.

 

34:15

And you know, many people come to this business out of the corporate world. Many people come to this business out of

 

34:21

out of certain aspects of what we do. Got people to come in, coming in now, you know that are from reconstruction, but they don't know water and mold, but they're successful at one and they'll figure out how to succeed at the other. You just gotta kind of step back, start at the bottom, and understanding what it is you're trying to accomplish, and then go after it. So, great success. And you couldn't, you couldn't buy into one of these business to had you not been pretty successful.

 

34:52

And so I think that that is probably the key thing. I'd say, if somebody coming in, you've been successful, just make this a success.

 

35:00

Right? Apply it here. And you said earlier, you know, it was felt now you have control, because you're the owner, and also, I think the what you said, the three things you know, you have to focus on top line revenue, keeping your employees happy, and cash flow. So, yeah, apply, apply success differently. Well, Roger, thank you so much for being here today. I love chatting with you and learning about your background and how you've been successful as a light speed restoration owner. So thanks Marcia, and thank you everyone for listening. I hope you've learned a thing or two about the heart of franchising with light speed restoration. Please subscribe to our channel and follow us on social media and to learn more about franchising with light speed restoration 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.