333 – Vetrepreneur Month: Tom interviews Joel Stewart

Episode 333 – Joel Stewart
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode three hundred and thirty three of Screw the Commute podcast. And this is part of Vetrepreneur's Month. And we've got to repeat guest from last year. His name is Joel Stewart and this guy is a doer. He's got all kinds of stuff, world wide stuff to tell you about. He's an expert in franchising and people all over the world are asking him for his advice on stuff. So we'll get to him in a moment. And the kickoff for Vetrepreneur's Month was the same as last year. It was Steven Kuhn. He was a decorated Army veteran and he invented the hit principle, honesty, integrity and transparency. And he's got this new book out with another Special Forces guy, Lane Belone, called The Humble Alpha. And so it's going crazy with sales. So make sure you don't miss that. Episode 332.

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[00:03:50] And I mean, the kids have got trillions of dollars in debt now and they're competing for jobs at Starbucks. So we'll get you out of that. So check it out. IMTCVA.org.

[00:04:01] All right. Let's get to the main event. Joe Stewart is an expert in the franchise industry who has coordinated and spoken at franchise conferences and events on three continents. Most recently, he's focusing his efforts on building an investment group to back veteran franchise startups. And we love our veterans around here. Anything we can do to help is great. And he's coordinating a franchise event for Discover America Week in the GCC. That's the Gulf Cooperative Council. And he's got a book coming out. We're going to hear all about that. Joel, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:41] Why, yes, I am.

[00:04:42] Oh, good for you. Yeah, man, it's been been over a year. We had the Vetrepreneur's Week last September. We're doing it again this year and just had to have you back because you're doing so much in the past year. So tell me a little bit about what's going on since last we talked.

[00:05:01] Oh, yes, so much that's been going on over the last year since we last talked. I think the big event was a literal circumnavigating of the globe. I put together three different franchising events, one in Oman, one in Bahrain and one in Thailand. And I left east out of New York and I came into New York from the West flying out of Korea.

[00:05:25] So I and two and a half weeks I did these events. Oh, my God.

[00:05:29] All the way around the world. So it was really an incredible experience. And then what are some other ones? Not another big thing is the web producer. Try this is up in Vermont. They asked me to be their franchise expert. So I've been trying to create value there. I recently did a four week series on the franchise discovery process.

[00:05:51] So it took me like probably over an hour spread out over multiple Facebook lives to go through everything involved with starting a franchise from A to Z summit and then coming.

[00:06:03] I guess I'm just kind of dump it on you. But coming out of the Bahrain event, they did one on the fundamentals of franchising. It was a partnership with the this business starting group in Bahrain and the American Chamber of Commerce. And they they really enjoyed the event really well attended. And they they asked me to speak at a new event they did in June.

[00:06:26] Now they put together a five day event to try to basically help economically empower women and the Middle East region by using the free trade agreement that the Bahrain has with the US. And they had a day on franchising and they asked me to come in and basically talk to, you know, that it was a lot of guys in the group.

[00:06:47] But the purpose was to educate the women and how they could use franchising to to raise their economic status. That was really honored that the U.S. embassy asked me to do that.

[00:06:58] Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you, because it seems I mean, the perception we have here in the United States is that the women are just way in the background.

[00:07:06] And the last thing you'd ever think about something for them is that changed.

[00:07:12] I believe that has changed a lot.

[00:07:13] So that's the perception. However, there was old men in the group and a lot of ways that's still the reality.

[00:07:21] Yeah, but the women that are active that because not not all the women are in that situation, especially. So the GCC countries are the really wealthy ones around the Gulf.

[00:07:31] So you've got like Kuwait and Bahrain and the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, you've got a lot of really wealthy countries and a lot of the women, you know, it's not just women from those countries. There's wealthy families from India and other countries in the region that are just there's an it's an economic powerhouse and they're jumping on it. And the women that I've talked to in that region, they are incredibly driven women like I. I can't even tell you that those women would that they'd succeed anywhere because they've risen to where they are in that culture, which is a little more difficult.

[00:08:07] Right. Little here. Yeah, that's an incredible.

[00:08:10] Yeah. So speaking of women, and I just don't want you to worry, you said you were dumping on me. I'm used to that from all the women in my life, so that's no problem. So tell us a little bit about actually actually the nuts and bolts of doing business outside of the US and those kind of countries. Do you do you have to get certain visas to get there? Did you have to get shots? Do you not drink the water?

[00:08:37] Well, in some cases it's more difficult and in other ways it's kind of easy. So I'll use Oman, for example. In Oman, every business has to have an Omani partner.

[00:08:49] Unless you're from the United States. Oh, you're from the United States. It's one of the only countries I'm not sure if it's the only country, but if there are others, it's very few that get the exemption. Wow. So if you're from the United States, it's the only way you can actually own your own business in Oman without an Omani partner. There are a lot of people to do it.

[00:09:09] Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:11] How big a country is that?

[00:09:14] It's not that I think I think mine's about five million right now.

[00:09:18] So, you know, it's like half of New York City, you know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's bigger than the New York City. Everybody left New York City last week. I Connecticut, where I am, I got three million.

[00:09:30] So it's it's almost to Connecticut, I suppose.

[00:09:33] Well.

[00:09:36] Most of the population is over there, it's a lot of the population is centered around just kind of big cities. So in Oman, over half of the population is in their capital city. And Bahrain basically is one big city. It's an island with a big city on it and they're adding it. They truck in sand from Saudi Arabia to build out the islands. Are you telling me I'm not kidding? No kidding. When we drove around Bahrain, the guy is like, oh, that's the original Bahrain. And he's like all of this has been added.

[00:10:09] They even made a giant bridge over to from this island over to Saudi Arabia so that they could say, I thought I like a sun porch under my house was a big deal, but I can stand to build skyscrapers. Is that really the best thing to build a skyscraper on? I wonder how well you work, what you got. Right. So so you had to get special visas or what? No. Just because you're an American, you could just breeze right. And yeah, you just walk right and just walk up to the at least my experience this time.

[00:10:43] Things have probably changed a little bit with pandemic travel. I mean, yeah, the moment. But yeah, I just go up to the custom desk. You're an American citizen. They give them its various amounts of money, but, you know, 20 bucks or whatever and they give you the thing.

[00:10:58] So I mean, there was a restriction on how long you could stay or I mean any of that.

[00:11:02] Yeah, yeah. I think the the visa that I did was maybe two weeks, but I was only in each country for a couple of days. Right. Yeah. You were you actually circled the globe then. Yeah, I was rocking and rolling. When you got a family with three kids and a wife back at home, you don't want to stop and smell the roses too much. Yeah, for sure.

[00:11:23] I did my event and I left some time for networking and meeting with people, and then I kind of moved on so that I could get home before my kids grew up.

[00:11:31] There you go. So. So tell us about this initiative. You have to help both veterans and so franchises and get investors and all that stuff.

[00:11:40] Yeah. So the right now I'm calling it the Veteran Franchise Initiative. Don't go and trademark that on me now.

[00:11:47] I already bought the domain like thirty. Not on yet but yeah, we're working on our first startup right now.

[00:11:54] But the concept is, is that I Tom talk to so many veterans over the last couple of years that are all just they'd make amazing business owners and franchises tell me that veterans are their most profitable franchises because they're so good at replicating systems. When you're in the military and you go from duty station, duty station, you show up and they give you this handbook, standard operating procedures. And they're like, this is what you got to do to be successful. And when you get into a franchise system, it's very similar. And so veterans are very good at replicating those systems. They make very profitable franchises. But the military is not great at financial education. Right. So a lot of the veterans that get out don't really have the finances to start their own business. So what I've been brainstorming this thing for a couple of years and then with a couple of people from the veterans tribe, we kind of brainstormed it down on how to take my thoughts to reality. And we're making it happen or I'm hoping to close on our first franchise within the month.

[00:12:57] And what I've done is I've had our first franchise.

[00:13:01] I think it's a good model for the future ones. And what we'd like is our veterans to put in fifty one percent to seventy five percent of the estimated initial startup costs and we'll put up the rest. We don't want to have we want you to run your business and and we just want to help you open it and be passive investors. So what type of franchises are we talking about? Well, this first one's going to be an excellent franchise that's growing.

[00:13:29] Yeah, it's it's one of those things. It's really picking up as an entertainment venue. I see it as fairly covid friendly because you've got big open warehouse spaces.

[00:13:40] People don't want to get anywhere near you when you go. You don't want to get in here each other.

[00:13:44] So you've got a big open warehouse, lots of air to breathe. That's not somebody else's recycled air and, you know, big open spaces.

[00:13:53] We're not too crowded. I think it's a good coat. You know, depending how they run it, it should be a good covid friendly.

[00:13:59] Are these are these normally like bars that serve alcohol to one of the existing locations?

[00:14:07] This franchise is called Axes Monkies. One of their existing locations is alcohol. But the owner says before throwing or while throwing your maxes to.

[00:14:16] Yeah, you're going to have more than that. You're done. You're hanging up your axes and just watching other people and having a good time with it.

[00:14:24] Maybe I should start a franchise like grinding axes because I got an ax to grind with a lot of people.

[00:14:32] So.

[00:14:33] So what other kinds of franchise? The would be perfect for veterans.

[00:14:39] Well, that what my my goal is and this one kind of surprised me because when I when I first heard of brainstorming this out, the ax throwing wasn't my my initial target idea. But no, the ones that I'd be looking to start right now are probably in the home services space, anything that allows people to use their homes. So you've been in your home for 26 years, as you said.

[00:15:00] Well, actually.

[00:15:01] Forty four years, four to four years to most people, especially the overworked ones that we're going to work 60, 80 hours a week that really would like to screw the commute. Well, now a lot of them are stuck in their house, right. And they're like, wow, I've never spent this this much time in my house in my life. And I've lived here 20 years. Right, exactly. Well, now that they're actually using their house, there's a lot of things that are much more difficult to live with.

[00:15:28] Or they might their spouse divorces are going crazy. I don't have a divorce law firm franchisor.

[00:15:38] But what I do have is, you know, if you want to spend more time outside, you know, there's pest control. There's a really unique one that that does niche for basically screening and stuff. Screen mobile, the.

[00:15:53] Screen mobile, they. They screened in porches, they screened the outside of your house, they'll set up screened areas, so that allows you to use your outside area even when you got bugs.

[00:16:05] Aka architect or concrete craft or some great ones that they do really custom work so that you can create beautiful outside patios and living areas.

[00:16:19] There's a couple of franchises that specialize in quick renovation. So they do like one to three day kitchen renovations, one to three day bathroom renovations. You know, if you're stuck in your house, you don't want your bathroom out of commission for a couple of weeks. Right.

[00:16:33] So what's the range of entry fees to get started on?

[00:16:38] A lot of the ones you handle the franchise?

[00:16:40] Yeah, well, the benefit of a home services franchise is you don't have a build out. You don't have a lot of the expenses that come with a physical location because you're the main part of your business. You can work out of your house. Right. A little bit of warehouse space somewhere. Right. So the cost is really low. So some of them are as low as maybe 20000.

[00:16:59] Total investment, probably between twenty thousand one hundred thousand total.

[00:17:05] So and that's I mean, you take a McDonald's is two million dollars plus 40 percent has to be in cash. And, you know, you'd be sleeping in the bathroom. I would never do any good. I'd eat up all the profits.

[00:17:18] Yeah, there's a wide range of franchise investments. So there's a lot of a lot of these ones that do home services and a lot of the argument against the home services franchise as well. The barrier to entry is low. Like I can go out and get certified in pest control. I can go out and start a handyman business. But one of the things I like to highlight is let's just take landscaping, for instance. Everywhere you go, you'll see, you know, be and landscaping, the TNR, you know, every two syllable in the alphabet. And it's a couple of guys with a truck and some lawn mowers. But do they know how to build seven figure landscaping business nine is out there. The ground guys, I mean, some of their top franchisees are pulling in multiple seven figures according to their franchise disclosure document.

[00:18:02] Legal disclaimer. Right.

[00:18:05] But so, like, when you're working with a partner that knows how to build a seven figure landscaping business, that's much different than you trying to figure it out yourself. And you end up pulling in maybe sixty one hundred thousand by working your butt off the whole year.

[00:18:17] Yeah. And you might as well just get a job.

[00:18:19] Yeah. Might as well just get a chunk of freedom working for yourself. There's definitely perks.

[00:18:25] Yeah, no question about that. I mean that's preaching to the choir there.

[00:18:28] But right now if you're going to invest in a in a veteran, do you have some type of vetting process? Because, you know, we love veterans revere them, but some of them may not be cut out for this even though they want to.

[00:18:46] And, you know, there's been a lot of PTSD and a lot of turmoil in the veteran community returning from war. So how do you know that the veteran is really right for getting into a business?

[00:19:01] Well, there's well, there'll be an interview process. Know the I've got a franchise specific behavioral assessment that I use. OK, guys, navigator. And that gives me it's kind of like I've ever heard of, like the disk profile, the brigs. It's kind of like those, but it's geared towards a franchise value base because people are going to be more satisfied and happy doing what they're doing if it matches their value system. So this specific one is more about matching your value system with what you're doing so that you're satisfied doing it.

[00:19:34] But it also has high performance profiles on on out there for probably one hundred or more different franchises.

[00:19:42] And so I'll also get notified if they hit a high performer profile. And so that would definitely be something that we could take a second look at. If that happens, then we can do background checks and we can do an interview process. But what I'd like to really see is I'd like to see them talk about what they did in their military service. You know, if a senior enlisted guy, if there is seven or above or if they're kind of a senior officer and they've shown that they've got leadership, if they've shown that that they can handle an organization, you know, you're just taking them from one thing where they know where, you know, they look at a standard operating procedures, best practices, and they go and they implement it to another thing. We're doing the exact same thing. So I mostly want to see what they did during their military service and just see what and if that if that kind of organizational leadership is in their experience, they're already head and shoulders above most civilians that would be trying to open a franchise.

[00:20:40] Do you have any anything that would would be appropriate for disabled veterans?

[00:20:48] Yeah, it's actually it's kind of funny is you mention the book that I'm working on right now, it's not quite out, but that the book I'm writing now, The Value Equation, which is my working title, is actually a it's a sequel or prequel, I should say, to a book I started writing and realized that I need a background book first.

[00:21:10] So I started writing a book that I called Defeating Disability, and it focused on using entrepreneurship to overcome physical disabilities because employers might look at someone who's disabled and say, well, this person can't do the X, Y and Z, so they're not a good fit for organization. Whereas entrepreneurship, you look at what you can do, not what you can't do. You say, these are my skills, how can the market use my skills?

[00:21:34] And and so I was going to write a book about that and I realized there's actually a book that needed to come before that. So the short answer is yes. There is a lot of franchises out there that can work very well with people who are disabled. And there are a lot of disabled military veterans because of that. With a franchise, you're either leading the organization or you're picking your place in the organization. So if it's going to end up being a larger organization, you're going to be leading it and you can lead an organization from your couch if you get the right people in place, if you hire the right people, maybe not from your couch, but without doing a whole lot, without things, you could do it from your wheelchair.

[00:22:11] I mean, you can do your wheelchair. Exactly. Absolutely. And I'll tell you, folks, you've got to really listen to this guy, because this is what the military does for you. It builds confidence because who writes the sequel, first of all, of a movie or a book?

[00:22:29] That's confidence right there. Yeah.

[00:22:32] So anyway, so. Yeah, so that's that's kind of the thing on there is that. But then there are some organizations, some franchises which are smaller. You need like three or four people and they just say to their owners, pick one one out of four spots in your organization, hire the other three. So yeah, there's a lot of flexibility there. And it's perfect because I work with about 600 franchise owners, but there's thousands of them out there. And if you've got almost any disability, I'm not going to say any disability, but for almost any disability, there's a franchise out there that will fit your skill set and what you're looking to do.

[00:23:09] And there are some that are even very passive friendly where you don't even have to be active in the day to day business. But that would require a larger upfront investment.

[00:23:18] You're not going be able do the management yourself or those are some rating system for franchisors because there's been a lot of, you know, Fly-By-Night franchises, too. So how do you protect the veterans from that?

[00:23:30] Well, that's part of what I do. So so the main thing I do as a franchise consultant is I work with people that want to start a business. They may not know specifically which one, but they know that I want to they don't want to do what they're doing anymore and and they want to get into a business.

[00:23:45] So I look at franchises. I go through the franchise disclosure documents with them. I, you know, advise them on the validation and go through the process. Some franchise orders are bad and you want to avoid them.

[00:23:58] And there's ways that you can kind of make sure you don't. We talked about that last time. I think it was episode one eighty five. We talked about some of the kind of warning signs you could look at. And I don't want to go through all of that again, but there's it's episode 185, OK? Yeah, great. But the so but what was the question again was avoiding the bad ones. So yeah. Avoiding bad. I go through and and I try to make sure that, you know, that we're not picking a bad one. But the second phase of it is it's not a franchise is right for every person. So that's where the behavioral matching comes into play. And that's where a lot of the chemistry, like I tell people when they go to their discovery days, you need to make sure that you've got good chemistry with those people. You're getting into a long term contract. It's very similar to getting into a marriage. It's a contractual relationship. It's going to last ten plus years.

[00:24:48] Probably make sure you enjoy it. I bring up the example of this one guy who's a franchise owner. I don't I don't mention which one, but we are on a virtual networking call. And he was talking about one of his franchisees that was really struggling. And the guy was complaining about how he couldn't make the system work and he couldn't make any sales. And I was just so over the top, it was like, yeah, I got my team down there.

[00:25:12] We did it. We implemented our system with our team three weeks. But the grinded feels pretty great.

[00:25:17] And the change is like some people, that brings out the best of them. But a lot of people like myself, like I would I would have a horrible experience working with that type of franchise.

[00:25:27] All right. So the chemistry really matters, but it comes down to matching your skill set, which is actually the focus of the the the book I'm writing now, the prequel matching your skill set with the right franchise and one of the focuses, I should say. So it's avoiding the lemons, the lemons. They're out there and there are ways to get through that and, you know, someone like me can help, and then there's making sure that even the ones that aren't lemons, it could be a lemon for you, even though they're not a lemon for someone else. So you've got to find the one that's the right fit. So that's kind of the two two ways to avoid getting yourself in a bad franchise agreement.

[00:26:05] Got it. So so when when is any one of the books coming out?

[00:26:12] My goal is to have it finished by the end of the year.

[00:26:15] Ok, so I've been making some good progress on it. I'd say it's probably a third done with the content, but it's all mapped out. It's just getting the time to physically get the ideas out on paper and then I've got to get it edited and all that stuff before getting it out. But so the prequel. So the book that I want to get to is called The Feeding Disability, which is resonates very strongly with me because I got medically retired from the military with a disability that my mind still work. My body was pretty much garbage and I've gotten past that now like I've recovered and now I'm active again. But I've got a passion for because because now I know what it's like.

[00:26:54] I know what it's like to have your ego just get crushed, to just have those feelings of worthlessness and everything and and feeling like there's nothing else you can do. Like, I understand that. And I want to channel that into my book and give people hope and give them direction if that's the state they're in. But the prequel, what I realized was I need to help people understand their skills. Like if I'm going to tell them that they can apply their skills and they can identify what their skills are and find the market gaps, I need to help them understand what it is that they have for skills and abilities and how they can improve those and keep themselves going. So my the book I'm writing now, the one is going to come out first. The value equation is all about understanding what feeds into your personal value and how much money you actually take home. At the end of the day, it goes through your skills, how to identify what your skills are, how to identify, how to improve your skills, how to how do your skills.

[00:27:49] So that's the first. The first part is developing skills. The second one is your fear factor. How do your skills fit with different jobs or different positions if you're owning your own business?

[00:28:03] And that goes into, you know, not not every job uses the same skills that every job uses, the same skills, the same way the market doesn't value the same skills that might be the same skill, but the market, depending how you apply it, doesn't value it the same way.

[00:28:18] And one of the things I focus on there is are you under qualified, qualified or overqualified for your job? And I say, if you're overqualified, it should only be in a case of strategic employment.

[00:28:28] Like you want a skill and you're going into a job you're overqualified for to learn a specific skill and then you're moving out. Qualified jobs will keep you stuck where you are your whole life. Gunning for jobs you're underqualified for is the best way to utilize employment to leap forward as long as you're not misrepresenting yourself because you're motivated, people will pay you. Even if you're underqualified, they'll train you with what to do. If they think that you're a motivated individual, that's going to become somebody important.

[00:28:57] Yeah, I'd rather have attitude than skills. Yeah, yeah.

[00:29:01] You can teach skills. So that's what I call that fear factor. And then there's profit sharing and that's where I get into employment versus owning your own business versus getting a partnership or a franchise business. But one of the the bigger things I focus on there is understanding your role as an employee. How about how a business values you?

[00:29:24] And and if you look at your life, like if you look at your life as an entrepreneurial venture, what you're bringing to an employer is they're plugging you into their value system.

[00:29:37] So, for instance, I looked at a major American company in twenty eighteen. They made 60 billion in profits. They had a couple of hundred thousand employees and their average employee made made about one hundred and twenty five thousand a year. But their average profit per per employee was six hundred thousand. So each one of those employees on average was generating six hundred thousand profits for the company, but they're only realizing one hundred and twenty thousand of that. So they are jumping on to this company's value making system to make one hundred and twenty thousand when their total market potential, what they bring to the table is six hundred thousand. If they could replicate what that company was doing and work for themselves as a business owner, they could be seeing five times that amount of money. So an employment is a money making thing that you plug yourself into, but you're only getting about 20 percent of the money that you're bringing to the market, you know, plus or minus. Whereas if you're owning your own business, you can realize one hundred percent.

[00:30:33] And if you're working with a partner, you know, 50, 40 or a franchise, maybe 70 percent of the money that you're making, it's a really complicated system to go. And it kind of puts employment on its head saying that the.

[00:30:47] You're yourself as an entrepreneur, and you're sacrificing 80 percent of your money generation to go work for somebody else, but I think it really highlights the value of your own business and understanding your own value, then it goes into perceived value. How do people perceive you and how does that affect the money you make? So if you're if you're a cashier working for, you know, in the lowest wage job, if you go out there and you're like, oh, let's let's organize some employees to talk about best practices and try to improve our own performance, you show that kind of initiative. The business is going to value you more than the other cashiers. They're going to be willing to give you a raise over the other cashiers because you're creating a perceived value. The company is perceiving your value more than the other cashiers and that that idea of perception is huge. It feeds into everything that we do every every part of our lives, from networking groups to whether or not we can ask for a higher starting salary or whether or not a client chooses us over a competitor. All of that is wrapped into how we are perceived. And if you're actively out there engaging and improving your perception, you're going to end up increasing the amount of value or the amount of money that you take home every week.

[00:32:00] All this stuff is going to be in your book. Yeah, yeah.

[00:32:03] I'll get busy people. I know. It's I know. And the last part is courage.

[00:32:08] So it doesn't matter if you have the greatest perceived value in the world, if you if you ask for that raise, because if you don't ask for it, they're probably not going to give it to you. They might if they're like, you know, an aggressive company, but or a company that really focuses on trying to retain employees. But if you don't have the courage to go for that job that you're underqualified for, if you don't have the courage to apply for that raise or try to negotiate a higher starting salary, chances are you're not going to get it. But most people can't just conjure up courage. Right. And that's where there's a second part to receive value, where it's how do you perceive your own value and what can you do to improve that? Because if you increase your own perception of value, it will increase your courage to go out and do those things.

[00:32:51] And you got to watch The Wizard of Oz quite a bit.

[00:32:55] Anyway, once I get all of these things fleshed out as a base, I think I'll take the dart and recording that you just spit out and put it in the book.

[00:33:06] Let's go, man. Yeah, so.

[00:33:09] So how do they get how they get in touch with you know, they don't have to be a veteran to get in touch with you about a franchise, right?

[00:33:16] No, no. I work with everybody. I focus most of my networking in the veteran community. Yeah, of course. So but yeah, I work with anybody that's looking to start a franchise, I'm sure.

[00:33:26] So how they get in touch with you?

[00:33:28] Well, they can email me. There's Joel.Stewart@IntegrityCommercial.biz.

[00:33:33] We can put that in the show notes.

[00:33:37] You can also follow me on Facebook or LinkedIn. Joel Stewart MBA, I believe is my handle for both of those.

[00:33:44] And I look forward to talking with anybody, absolutely any of these things, I'm more than happy to talk.

[00:33:51] I give people free advice more than I give people advice.

[00:33:56] So, folks, yeah, it's you know, I'm a total person that believes in business.

[00:34:01] I mean, never had a job ever, you know. Well, a little bit cutting grass and call in high school. But but the the thing is, is some people need the plan for them. And so that's what franchise is all about. I actually tried to start a franchise once, but it's a lot of regulation. You got to go on. Just wasn't for me. But but the thing is, is you can be sure that if somebody has gone through all of that, that that's the first level of checking them out and then you got joder to take it to the next level. So. So thanks for coming on, man. I really appreciate it.

[00:34:35] I appreciate you having me back.

[00:34:37] Yep. We love our veterans, that's for sure. And then you're obviously one that's doing doing big things and helping other veterans, too. So thanks. Thanks, man.

[00:34:47] Yeah, and thank you for that, because, you know, this is about Vetrepreneur Week, the value that Tom puts into our group of entrepreneurs is, I think, incredible. It's above board and he's not getting compensated for it. So I also want to give a thank you back.

[00:35:04] You're welcome. And in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to do another session in the series that was doing on viral marketing so that you can bring in the rigorous numbers of people and in a viral fashion. So.

[00:35:17] All right. So, everybody, we will catch on the next episode. Check out great Internet marketing, training dot com.

[00:35:23] That's my mentor program, one of the longest running, most successful ever in the field of Internet and digital marketing. And also, if you're in that program, you get a scholarship to my school, which you can either use yourself or gift the loved one in your life, and they will thank you for it.

[00:35:40] So we'll catch everybody on the next episode. See ya later.

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