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Episode #18: Ross Weisman on Building High – Performing Teams for Franchise Growth

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Smart Franchising With Fransmart - Episode 1
Oct 28, 2024
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Ross Weisman grew a single Massage Envy location into a 250+ unit empire across eight states. In this episode, he shares key insights from his success as an area representative for Massage Envy and European Wax Center.

Now, as co-founder of Epic Managers, Ross helps franchisees find and keep top talent. His experience shows that great managers are worth the investment – they reduce turnover, improve customer service, and boost profits.

When we’re looking for leaders we’re looking for people that have certain behavioral attributes. They don’t have to have the perfect lineup of experience to what we’re hiring for, but we need to see that they’ve demonstrated those skills and attributes in the past.

This episode offers practical tips on hiring, compensating, and supporting managers to build successful franchise operations, perfect for anyone looking to grow their franchise business through better leadership.

Episode transcript

Dive into the text transcript of our insightful conversation where we uncover the strategies and stories behind successful franchise brands. Explore at your own pace and gain valuable insights to fuel your franchising journey.

Read the transcript

Dan Rowe (00:00.988)
All right, welcome back to Smart Franchising with Fransmart and today we’re chatting with Ross Wiseman, former 250 plus unit area rep with Massage Envy and European Wax in eight states and now with a much needed franchisee staffing business called Epic Managers, getting franchisees the people they need to build and run their franchise businesses. So I’m exciting to dig into the area rep model.

with Ross but I’m more excited to talk about building high performing teams so Ross thanks for joining us how about a little bit more about yourself and your story.

Ross Weisman (00:36.806)
Hey Dan, thanks for having me on. It’s exciting to be here. Happy to go through my background a bit. So my background in franchise actually, I kind of grew up in franchise alongside my family. They got involved way back in 2000 at this point in a brand called Action Coach. And my father and uncle from there ended up finding Massage Embi through a franchise broker. And

That started the journey of my exposure to Franchise because as we opened our first location, I attempted to work the front desk in that location, failed miserably, learned that my skills and value was elsewhere. But it was a great process of getting to see a very young brand in the earliest days as it got going. And from there, like you mentioned, the rest is a bit of history.

As a family, the area reps for massage MB and ended up picking up multiple States, opening our own locations as multi -unit operators and did the same thing a few years later for European wax center. And we were operating those brands concurrently for almost 15 years. ended up exiting those brands. Like you said, once we had built those regions up and had our own multi -unit portfolio of 10 locations and, really enjoyed that ride.

learned a lot. And a lot of what we learned was how important the leaders in the locations are. And that led us to my business partner, Matt and I, starting a company called Epic Managers to help find top talent. So that brings us to current day.

Dan Rowe (02:14.298)
Great. How big was massage envy? How big was European wax when you guys first got involved? Let’s start. Let’s start with massage envy. How big were they when you guys first got

Ross Weisman (02:24.262)
Yeah, MassageMD. So my family got involved in 2004 and opened our first location in 2005. So in that time, the brand really had started in 2002, if I remember correctly. So they were for sure sub 20 units open at the time that we first were introduced to the brand. And we opened location number 52.

But it probably was, there were still fewer than 50 locations. As you know, it takes a while for everyone to find real estate. So it’s probably still around 35 locations when we first opened in New Jersey.

Dan Rowe (03:01.136)
Yeah, so you guys got involved when they two years after they started. Wow, so and so obviously you’re a testament to emerging early stage brands can be just

Ross Weisman (03:13.306)
For sure. I think there’s always some serendipity and luck, I think, involved in finding something. And that time was really the emergent time for the first wave of those personal care health and wellness franchise brands that have now become the OGs of a very flourishing market in health and wellness, as we both know. But yeah, there was some serendipity there, and it was introduced to us through a franchise broker.

Jack Armstrong in New Jersey. I think we definitely appreciate the role that brokers can play in finding you a great brand.

Dan Rowe (03:50.364)
So your road to 250 plus units started with the franchise broker. That’s good. Sometimes we get a bad

Ross Weisman (03:54.916)
That is true.

Ross Weisman (03:59.172)
That’s right. Well, think things have evolved over time and franchise brokers, which had been a dirty word, is now evolving into more of a true partner and consultant. And I know Fransmart does a lot more than just matching people with the brand. So it’s definitely changed.

Dan Rowe (04:14.544)
Well, good. And then did I hear you right? The concept started in Arizona. You guys two years after the concept started, opened your first unit clear across the country in Jersey. How did that? So tell me about that. Cause that’s not brand new brand in a brand new market. No awareness. Like how do you guys do

Ross Weisman (04:25.285)
Yeah, that’s right.

Ross Weisman (04:34.266)
You know, it was, there were definitely some challenges at the time because with any unknown brand, you’ve got to establish some positive relationship with that company and some reputation. And in massage, especially where the stigma was massage parlor and not massage clinic, it created some headwinds when trying to find some real estate. And so there was very much a, a personal element

vouching for the brand and being the face of the brand in the very beginning when approaching a landlord or a township and That was that was part of what was required for an emerging brand like that at the time So it it was part of the equation for sure that there had to be some additional Work in partnering with the brand to kind of build that reputation out early

Dan Rowe (05:24.666)
Yeah. Yeah. Cause usually sometimes I mean, a lot of times people are buying a franchise for name recognition or for something and clear across the country. You didn’t have that. You just had a system. You had a good idea. Really is what you guys bought was a good idea at the right time. You guys took it and made it successful. I mean, obviously with the company, but you did it clear across the country. So that, mean, that’s sort of a, that’s, that’s sort of almost like cheating like a, for me.

talking about how easy it is to make money in the franchise business. You guys did it with a brand new brand clear across the country with no name recognition. You guys did just

Ross Weisman (06:01.626)
Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a testament to approaching the brand with the right mentality. Brands are, you know, especially in franchise are built on consistency and scale, but at the core of that is process. And my father and uncle, right out of the gate, our family was very focused on process and consistency. And so in the role as both area reps opening a location,

Everything came down to how do we execute this model as true to form as what we saw in Arizona and not deviate, not innovate. the, the entire point was, like you said, the good idea that they had. And most franchise brands are like any new business. It’s you’re either making something better or you’re doing something completely new. think franchise lends itself really well to doing something better and where scale and consistency can really bring something new to an area

maybe it’s fragmented or there’s problems with the model because you can’t get the right economics unless you’re big. It’s the perfect combination. I think it worked out really beautifully

Dan Rowe (07:07.92)
Well, let’s, let’s see what people can learn from this. So when you guys went clear across the country, why do you think you guys were successful? What were some of the things that you did to make that brand successful so fast right off the bat? Cause then otherwise you’d never would have scaled it, but like what, what are, mean, what, what role did real estate play? Did marketing play? Like why were you guys so successful with a brand no one ever heard

Ross Weisman (07:31.128)
I, it was a combination of things. there was, there was familiarity with franchise going into it that helped, coming out of action coach. and that really sharpened the saw, think with our family and our understanding of how to develop a territory, how to support franchisees. And there’s a balance here between as an area rep, you are functioning as an extension of the franchise or that’s one set of responsibilities and the requirements that come with that. And then there’s operating the actual location.

And each thing requires specific skillset. And so there was very much a who, how mentality here of getting the right people in the right seats. And it just so happened that our family, just the way that my uncle had the entire sales part of it and just nailed that was, was very much obsessed on the development side of things. And my father oversaw the operations side, but as an extension of that, they immediately found a really strong leader.

to run the box because they knew that wasn’t their skill set. And it also was going to take them away from being able to focus on also being an effective area rep. And so it was very much getting the right people in the right seats quickly. And there was, again, some serendipity, found an amazing leader in the first manager hire for our Fullerum Park, New Jersey location, who ended up then basically operating as the director of operations.

all of our portfolio massage envy by the end of the run. So that was a great story in just finding an excellent person and letting them do a great job running the business. the area rep side, was having, putting process around some of the intangibles that weren’t fully defined by the franchise or in the beginning. that included like selection process for real estate, the order of operations from, you know, starting

developing your location all the way through to opening. We actually created an inside guide that had everything, including broker recommendations for real estate, insurance, having architect recommendations, little tidbits we had learned along the way of, you know, here’s what might go wrong and build out and how you’d fix that. It was really an effort in trying to put process where there wasn’t process and create a lot of consistency.

Ross Weisman (09:51.82)
And frankly, bringing the right types of franchisees as well, the ones that were well -heeled, that would have the money to make the investment the right way, the right people, the right amount of marketing specifically. Like that was a huge focus early on was co -op and making sure that you had a group that coalesced together around an idea of how to put money to work to make the brand reputable and known in the market. was, it was a mix of a lot of things.

Dan Rowe (10:20.73)
Yeah. And you, you said something about your uncle and your father because they were, they were a good balance. And that’s what maybe some people don’t understand about an area rep model. When you’re an area rep model, you’re both the salespeople selling essentially sub franchises and you’re the support vehicle. You’re sort of a mini franchise or right. And a lot of those are left brain, right brain. So you have to be really good at marketing and sales and visionary and telling a big picture to get people to want to join your,

your business. But then once you get them in operations is a pretty mundane watching the trains go around the track boring. You don’t want franchisees who are going to be a re -embed in the process. Like you need somebody who’s just like, like fanatical about, about systems. So, I mean that, that’s something that’s, that a lot of people don’t understand. And when I see a lot of people buying area rep deals, they’re either better at marketing or at operations. And so then the other one suffers.

So, but you guys were fortunate. You had both.

Ross Weisman (11:23.962)
Definitely. for sure, that was the formula for success. had to have somebody going a hundred percent on the development side, being thoughtful about how to create that. There’s some creation of sense of urgency, right? In terms of making sure that people are incentivized to not just make the investment, but also find a location to open. And there was an entire structure around the pecking order in terms of who was next. And if you didn’t jump on the next available location,

It was the next franchisee who got to say yay or nay on that. And that created incentive for somebody to say, yeah, I want to make sure that I say yes to something when the real estate comes up. And that speed of planting the flag in the right locations in the A malls was a huge component of a winning strategy for a new brand. had to be in great locations and you had to get there as quickly as you could.

Dan Rowe (12:14.586)
Yeah, what any any argument? Well, what’s your argument for an area rep model like a brand that’s thinking about growing with area reps like what’s the argument for doing

Ross Weisman (12:26.982)
Yeah, I think it’s evolved over time here over the last 20 years, but the argument at that time, especially with a lesser known brand and less of the franchise ecosystem where it was well known now that a young brand could make a splash and be reputable. They really needed the ingenuity and the human to be in market representing that brand.

in a way that they were fully invested. They had made the investment. They wanted to not only see that their area rep investment flourish, but they were required to open a location too. And the only way to really, you know, to really develop that brand further is to plant the flag of new locations as well. And so all boats would rise. There was an extension of the franchisor’s ability to support.

They’re both getting revenue in, of course, for selling the territory and then the horsepower of that team to then help support the franchisees rather than having to shell those dollars out. So it’s kind of a double hit for the franchisor. And, you know, as we know, that comes with the long tail of the relationship you have with the area rep. So there’s, it’s a double edged sword, but when you have the right people in that position, it can accelerate the growth of a brand extremely quickly.

Dan Rowe (13:53.028)
Yeah. And then, and then obviously then the opposite is true, right? Like who makes a terrible area rep is someone who either, I mean, they either are not good at marketing and sales or don’t care about operations, which at the end of the day, operations is even more important because if you have high performing franchisees, the business sells itself.

Ross Weisman (14:14.06)
Absolutely. Yeah. If your flagship location in your region is doing poorly, it’s going to be very hard to walk a prospective franchisee in there, look them in the face and ask them to make an investment. And so you have to have, you know, each side of that covered and having the right person in operations for your unit. You can’t moonlight as also overseeing the operations for your store. If you’re in that position.

Dan Rowe (14:39.622)
Yeah, yeah. What are some things an early emerging franchisor can do to help make sure folks like you are more successful? Because a lot of times you hear these stories where a concept from, let’s just say the West Coast sells the master for the East Coast. They get a big splash in the press and then a couple of years later it’s done, it’s gone. And so what are some things franchisors can do to make sure that early adopters are successful?

Ross Weisman (15:07.93)
I think it does come down to, you know, there’s the anatomy of a strong concept and there’s the elements that make a concept viable. Obviously profitability is such a core necessity to the success of a concept. won’t go too deep into that. think a lot of your listeners get that. The, the other elements here that are really important early on is to make sure that you, if you’re selling a territory like that, you’ve got somebody in that seat that understands.

the importance of, you they’ve picked a concept. Let’s hope they’ve picked a great one. The next two things are pick a phenomenal location for that concept and pick a phenomenal leader to run it. And the messaging that often comes through from young franchisors, there’s a lot of obsession around brand. There’s a lot of obsession around kind of tweaking and polishing the operations. But if the person that then is responsible for deploying that brand in the market and then executing actually

planting the flag and running a location isn’t clear on the investment that’s required for those two critical pieces. That’s usually where these brands flounder. And so it’s having that steady drumbeat throughout the beginning, which is, yes, we’re pouring a lot of investment and time into creating a great concept that’s replicable, that’s consistent, that’s profitable. But make sure that those partners that you have understand

You’re investing in real estate because it will do more work for you than any search engine marketing or branding could ever do if you put it in the right spot. Those dollars are far more leveraged if you invested in rent, typically for a location.

Dan Rowe (16:49.456)
You mean pick picking the right site? Yeah, paying up for the end cap paying up for high pro.

Ross Weisman (16:51.44)
Picking the right site. Yeah.

Don’t be afraid to spend that extra two grand a month because if you don’t, you might have to spend double or triple that in marketing to try to make up for the inadequacy of the space. And then you’ve laid all these amazing plans out. You’ve picked the right concept. You’ve put it in the right spot. If you don’t put the right leader in that location, everything falls apart. And I think a lot of franchisors, there’s a hazard when they talk

the ease of operations, for example, there’s kind of a mix of incentives here. They don’t want it to look too hard to operate the concept. But at the same time, that might cover or mask the fact that it’s still critically important to have the right leader. These are still people, frontline teams that are running these businesses. Your lowest paid employee is delivering the entire experience of the brand. And 70 % of what they do is dependent

the communications they have with the manager. This is something that we think about all the time. It’s something that was in a Gallup survey. 70 % of their engagement and how they show up at work is the communications they have with their manager, period. It doesn’t matter what your comp plan is, your incentives, the benefits, the company picnics you throw, how many times you give them pizza. It’s all going to be dependent on the manager. And yet so many neglect this. They don’t invest in the manager. They

do that final last mile piece of making sure that they’ve got that right leader to make sure the executions are solid. And I think a lot of young brands, there’s more emphasis that they can put on this. There’s of course, co -employment and I think that makes everyone skittish around talking about this, but the investment here is so critical. Knowing what an A player looks like, the behaviors they exhibit, and then knowing how to actually manage a manager that’s a top player.

Ross Weisman (18:48.292)
so that they don’t want to leave because they usually become the punching bag for inexperienced franchisees. it’s a delicate balance of, know, the franchisor puts a tremendous amount of effort into their concept. And I think what happens is from the main stage or the little conferences that they’re having, the communications they’re having on a daily basis, the updates they’re sending out to the network, it’s all about tweaking the model or the new branding campaign.

there’s very little air time given to just how important the execution and the leader is. And I think that’s why in this telephone game, sometimes that gets lost with the franchisees and they don’t focus on process consistency and a manager to execute that process consistently.

Dan Rowe (19:32.336)
Hey, let’s back it up. When I first, when I was first asking you to tell me the story, you said my uncle, my dad, and our ops person, you, you guys early on, one of your secret secrets of success was you guys had a great ops person. And then did you also say that that person wound up scaling with you for the, for the whole journey? So she, she started when you were how many units one and she left when you were how many units?

Ross Weisman (19:51.674)
Yeah, she did. She was fantastic.

Ross Weisman (20:01.734)
For massage, I mean, we were probably right around 100.

Dan Rowe (20:06.78)
Okay, and so, so, yeah, I mean, let’s talk about that. Like the, the, ability, you’re not just hiring a manager, you’re hiring someone to actually build and run your company. Cause nobody wants when they’re buying a franchise, you’re not buying a job. You’re basically buying a business. You’re buying an asset. Nobody’s ever going to buy the company from you. If you’re the only one that can do everything like you need to think about building a company, you need to staff for the company you’re trying to

some day you need to staff for the company you’re trying to grow. So with that, maybe talk a little bit more before we dive into Epic managers, like what, what role did some key operations people have helping you guys get to 250 units?

Ross Weisman (20:52.016)
Yeah, I think it was critical. was really the backbone of the regional rep organization. The beauty of having the duality of both being a multi -unit operator and a developer area rep is that you have the crossover in your organization. You have your stores for a farm team of talent, and then you have that talent that can go out, make your franchisees more successful.

and grow your royalty stream as well. And it was critical to have somebody who could oversee operations specifically at the director level, but that is just one individual we invested very heavily, not only in the team for Massage Embi, but for European WAC Center as well, to have trainers in both. had different lines of service that required lead trainers, aesthetics, massage therapy.

Same thing for European WAC Center in the Esthetician Training Department. You have the operations coaches that we would deploy that were essentially the way that FBCs function from a franchisor side. We had our own business coaches essentially that were going into the market and working directly with managers. We were setting up trainings in our co -op where these individuals were actually hosting seminar style trainings on a monthly basis.

in both brands for managers, for lead massage therapists, lead estheticians. So it was very much a train the trainer model. And this was a constant investment we were making from very early on to have a very structured discipline co -op. And that was part of the criteria for these franchisees being them being on board with this model of support and knowing that they would need to participate. have to send people to these trainings. They need to invest in their own team.

That became an ecosystem essentially of trainers, trainers that were training other trainers and our support team that were, they were very close. I mean, these were people that had stayed with the brand longer. So you had a backbone of talent that was across the entire franchisee network of people that had just been around longer. They were well trained and that you couldn’t have done it with just one person. You have to start with

Ross Weisman (23:19.184)
But it’s as much building as much of a bench of support as you can in an organization like that made all the difference.

Dan Rowe (23:26.588)
And it’s worth it, right? You started with one, you grew to 250. You said earlier, we hadn’t, we exited the businesses, which is really French for we sold those companies. Like you guys built something from zero to big and you sold it and net net. You, you only grew that big because of the people that you had running the business. and you’re here to say that it’s worth paying up for good people,

Ross Weisman (23:54.082)
Absolutely. think that’s also part of the story here is on the franchisor side, because we get asked this a lot. And this is part of why we exist in the company that we built today is there’s a limit to how much a franchisor can push on this rope. There’s the co -employment concerns. And you can’t dictate what somebody does. But you can guide them. You can provide that.

the evidence that investing in great leadership makes a huge difference. And if you were to pull 95 % of the FBCs would say the main defects they see in the field, in unit economics, when a store’s underperforming, it’s because it’s got a bad manager. And finding a way to systematically upgrade the talent in the network and be obsessive with that as a franchisee, think

That’s what a franchisor should really aim for is instilling that mentality. And if somebody wants to scale, you need to have the same mentality, which is you’re really, you’re focusing an incredible amount of energy, time and resource on getting the right people to run the operations of the stores, because everything falls apart downstream if you don’t get that right. And conversely, everything in your life is way easier when you have the right manager in the box.

Dan Rowe (25:20.732)
So talk about Epic managers. Like why do you guys create the company? What’s the big idea? Are you simply just a matchmaker, headhunter, or I mean, I would imagine with all your operational chops compared to all the other, I get 40 emails a day of people that ask if I’m looking for staff. My sense from the emails I get are that those people don’t have your background.

But when I want, yeah, tell me more about Epic managers, why you started, why you guys are different and also why you guys are mean. I think you guys are a key to why a lot of franchisees and franchise ors could be a heck of a lot more successful.

Ross Weisman (26:01.478)
Yeah. I, so I think where I would start with this, Dan is we, we’ve seen a lot in our days, retail service businesses. My partner, Matt Robinson came from wireless and ultimately was in a position overseeing all 1100 locations in the wireless network. was, he was at AT &T, he was at T -Mobile. And so he’s very, he came from a world of scale and he came from a world of process.

And his perspective was the corporate perspective in terms of how much support and guidance is given around the people operations side of the business. Franchise doesn’t have that because of the limitations legally. It’s just one of the, it’s where the dirt road begins after the pave road ends. And it is one of those funny areas where it, it can’t get a lot of air time because there’s a limitation, but it deserves the most.

And there’s so many, there’s so few options to resolve this. At the end of the day, a lot of the reason why frontline jobs suck is because of a bad manager. We talked about the 70 % stat where 70 % of the way that a person shows up at work and what they do and their level of engagement has entirely to do with the communications they have with their manager. And there’s a lot to be said about the right way to coach and the right way to be a great manager.

But you have to have the right manager in the first place. And if you could just have the right manager, you could address all of the systemic problems that have been accepted in this industry as just the way it is, high turnover. People hate frontline jobs. These jobs are, they suck. Nobody wants them. None of that has to be true if you have the right manager in place. It dramatically changes.

that work environment. We’ve seen that happen in our own locations. We had best in class for manager turnover in our network. And we also had best in class turnover stats for our team, which we believe was directly correlated with having great steady management. So much of the root cause challenges in these businesses comes from poor management. We think it’s funny that there’s an entire industry related

Ross Weisman (28:29.702)
cleaning and washing bad online reputation. When if you just read the Yelp reviews, 95 % of those Yelp reviews are because a disengaged employee didn’t follow a process. And there’s no getting around the fact that that’s because you have a management problem. That so much of that wouldn’t exist if you had the right manager. So if we go back to our days as area reps, I can’t tell you just every conversation

how many we had around the manager. I need to find a new manager. My manager’s really screwing the operations here. Pardon my French. The franchisees will pick on the manager position a lot for their ills. And yet, if you pull back the layers, a lot of times it’s because they haven’t invested properly in that manager, whether it’s the training aspect or whether it’s compensating them correctly.

There’s so many times when compensation is just lopsided. And these are the kinds of conversations we’ll have with franchisees that work with us. We give guidance on compensation, how to do that the right way. Because at the end of the day, if you get that person right, it dramatically changes your business. So Epic Managers has grown out of us just observing time and time again that so much of the challenge in this business comes

Not having the right manager in place and they’re not being another option. The there’s a DIY where the franchisee has to quickly start to become good at, recruiting a manager, which they have a lot of things to juggle. It’s hard to do. There’s, you know, having the HR admin person that moonlights as a recruiter, which is very hard for them to wear multiple hats, get back to people in timely manner. And frankly, a lot of times if there’s not a process around hiring, a lot of bias creeps

inconsistency. It’s the same thing as anywhere else in the franchise business. If you can have a consistent recruiting process, you’re going to get consistently better candidates because you’re evaluating them on a scale that is knowable and consistent. Once you start involving other people in the interview process, if they’re not well trained, you get a lot of weird questions in there. You get a lot of distortion around selecting the person you end up going on gut because you don’t have

Ross Weisman (30:55.13)
the logic to check it against to make sure you make the right decision. So long, long story short, Dan, I mean, there’s, there’s so much here in terms of why this is important and how much can be resolved by having a good partner. We just felt it was the right time to have a solution like this with people that had experience in the industry and could actually provide guidance to franchisees as well as the service.

Dan Rowe (31:18.588)
Ross, why, what is an ideal manager? What is the right manager? Cause you said a lot of the problems come from not having the right manager. So for, if you were buying a franchise all over again, knowing what you know, now you’re going to buy something five unit territory, 10 unit territory, whatever you’re going to open your first store. Ideally, you’re going to staff it with people that are going to continue to grow and mutate and make life easier. And so it involves.

not doing a warm body hire. You actually got to be purposeful on who you bring in, how you orient them, how you train them, how you comp them, how they feel working for you, right? Like, cause you could pay somebody, you could overpay someone and they still feel terrible about the environment. So why don’t you talk about like the ideal manager? And if you were a franchisee, what sort of advice would you give a franchisee for building the right team?

Ross Weisman (32:13.638)
I think it really starts with when you’re there’s a lot to this, as you said, in terms of how you attract the right manager, how you might write a job advertisement that’s not just a copy paste job description. and we these are the things that we educate the franchisees that work with us on. And we share with them how we go through this process to make them more competitive in the talent marketplace. But when you’re looking for a leader,

and you’re evaluating whether that’s the right person. The way that we look at this is from a behavioral attributes standpoint. We’re looking for the experience that they’ve had in the past to match what’s going to be asked of them in this role. And that doesn’t mean a lookalike job. And I think a lot of franchisees fall into the trap of I’m opening a gym with presale and therefore I absolutely need somebody who’s opened a gym with

experience. And by the way, they’ve got to have five years experience and they’ve got to have a green unicorn tail and several other things that make it very, very challenging. You’re limiting your labor pool dramatically. But if you look at it through the lens of the behavior that they’ve exhibited in the past, and of course the results that they’ve then coupled with that, you can look at it from the standpoint of, I need somebody who has a proven ability.

to drive execution and results. So let me look at their work history and ask them questions for them to tell me the story of how they’ve demonstrated that. They’re comfortable holding people accountable. That’s so much about driving frontline execution. They’re comfortable following process and procedure. That is franchise at its core. You don’t want someone who believes that their way is the better way. They’re an adaptable problem solver. So they have enough

confidence in themselves that they’re not going to be coming to you constantly to ask what should I do next? There are certain situations where that makes sense and you lay out the rules of the road. But in most situations, you need them to be competent, proficient at handling customer service issues, handling call outs, all of the things day to day that are common in businesses with frontline teams. They’re comfortable performing in a sales and service environment.

Ross Weisman (34:38.714)
They not only can handle the sales side, but they also deliver a polished experience. know, and all of this is through process. the answer at the end of the day is, are they a leader that can drive teams to follow process and build mastery in that process as a great coach and ultimately just be a positive role model for the staff? so when we’re looking for leaders, we’re looking for someone who’s got behavioral attributes. So that doesn’t mean that they have to have the perfect

line up experience to what we’re hiring for. But we need to see that they’ve demonstrated those skills in the past. And then we know that we need to incentivize them correctly where there’s a good portion of their pay that is based on performance and they’re comfortable with that. Because when someone’s comfortable with a good portion, let’s say 25 % of their take home annual pay being performance based and reasonable and gettable, because a lot of franchisees make the mistake

hanging a large bonus out there and then making it impossible to pay out. And that’s why nobody trusts bonus anymore when it’s listed in a job ad. Very demoralizing. And they’re structured in odd ways, right? If you’re paying a bonus only annually, if in month nine they see they’re not going to hit it, you’ve just lost three months of any incentive for them to perform. There’s things like that that a lot of franchisees don’t realize can work against them.

Dan Rowe (35:43.504)
Yeah, it’s demoralizing.

Ross Weisman (36:05.018)
They’re very basic things, but when you get them right in terms of comp, you’re aligning all the pieces for them to fit together correctly. So there’s a lot to it, but then supporting that person, giving them the clear guidance and the steady drum beat that their job as a manager, their only job, is to make sure the team is on process. mean, that is as simple as it can get for a manager.

And it takes away all of the whack -a -mole that comes with KPIs. this pre -book number is low. I’m going to focus on this now. This sales conversion number is low. I’m going to focus on that now. It all comes down to process execution. It should not be that there’s whiplash month to month in terms of what the manager is focusing

Dan Rowe (36:51.546)
Ross, you said something earlier when I first asked you the question, you brought up a very important nuance that we kind of went over. said we help, we help employers. What’d you say? More competitive in the talent acquisition space. So, so many times I think people that are hiring are thinking that they’re doing someone a favor by hiring them. Right. And that they’re

they’re gonna anoint someone and do them a favor of bringing it in, which it’s just the opposite. All these people that are looking for a job are looking for the right fit. They’re not always gonna be driven by comp or whatever, talk about that a little bit. What is someone, go through the eyes of the employees. What are they looking for? If you wanna actually attract really good people, what are some things that you need to actually be willing to do for your really good

Ross Weisman (37:43.718)
I think a lot of it in the very beginning, the attracting somebody to the job, there are basic things like making sure that the way that you present the company from the very first moment is an opportunity they would be interested in. And I mentioned it before, but a job ad is an advertisement. It is not a job description that’s copy pasted in. And if you see a long list of bulleted duties versus a description

Here’s what this job’s going to look like when you come to work with us. Here’s what kind of team we are. And here’s where you stand to benefit and gain from this opportunity. And by the way, you need to have this kind of experience, a few bullets about that. But if you’re interested, reach out to us to have more of a discussion. That’s all you need at the very beginning to first introduce yourself. You don’t just start regurgitating, you know, memorized lines of things when you first meet somebody for the first time.

you’ve got to first get to know them and let them start to get to know you. Part of that is also knowing to invest in these individuals and showing them that there’s a big upside. A lot of the clients that we find have the greatest success are not only the ones that are willing to put a larger number out there because they know every dollar they invest in a great manager is going to come back to them fivefold in the profitability that they get from their unit, but also

They don’t necessarily want to cap a manager’s earning potential. They want them to earn as much as humanly possible, and that their entire role is to work with a manager. And everything that they communicate with that manager is from the standpoint of, we’re looking at how to make you the most successful in this role. Here are the skills that you should, if you show up with these skills, we believe you have a high probability of success. And here’s what we’re going to do.

to make it that much more likely that you will succeed. Here’s the training we’re going to give you. Here’s the support. Here’s the guidance we’ll give you around the business. Of course they get the franchise process, but then there’s also the support and guidance they get from the franchisee, the director they’re reporting to. All of that being in place, that’s very attractive to somebody who’s coming into a role. They don’t want to be the punching bag like we talked about before. And sadly, usually they are. It’s, I’m going to stick a manager in here.

Ross Weisman (40:07.866)
they’re kind of going to be given keys and codes, but no guidance. And oftentimes franchisees will promote from within their best salesperson. It’s a young person typically who doesn’t have a lot of management experience. That’s even more challenging for them, especially because now they have to manage peers. And in that environment, it makes it so that they’re basically decreasing the probability of success. And a franchisee

that’s attuned to this is going to look at the situation from the standpoint of, need to stack the deck for this person to be successful. I need to give them every advantage possible. And a lot of that does come from the guidance around what’s the right end of the knife to grab, which is process. A lot of managers get lost in the conversation that they have with their franchisees around numbers. Everything is numbers. It’s

pointing at numbers on a spreadsheet, I need this number to go from here to here. If you’re not focusing that individual on how to do that, and spoiler, the answer is driving consistent execution in process, then they’re going to start to grab the wrong end of the knife in terms of incentives and rewards and changing the pay structure, which employees do not love. I’m sure you’ve experienced that before in your own operations.

Change, you have a limited bank account for that. You need to deploy it very carefully.

Dan Rowe (41:39.896)
Yeah, no Ross. It’s it never ceases to amaze me how franchise or Zan franchisee’s I mean they’re trying to build these great big companies. You know let’s take a franchisee buys a huge territory pays all this money to lock up a territory spends all kinds of money building the first location and they cut corners on their people. They cut corners on the people and remember the whole reason like I said earlier think about staffing for the company you’re trying to sell.

Like if you could open two or three, I know so many franchisees who parlayed a very small investment into a humongous franchise company. so, you know, it’s like compounding their returns, but it all happens with high performing teams. And a lot of times you got to align the compensation. If you’re like, Hey, I want you to work really hard for me so that we grow two units to 200. And I saw the company for a gajillion dollars and you don’t get anything.

Right. I’m going to underpay you and whatever. It just doesn’t

Ross Weisman (42:37.978)
Yeah. Yeah. The incentives aren’t aligned. think it’s interesting too, when franchisees may look at their model that they’re operating or their own P &L, let’s say, and they look at the P &L and they basically derive from the P &L the budget they have for a manager. And that’s based on present day circumstances, not based on the idea that if I put the right leader in place, my P &L is going to look dramatically different.

And so they basically create their own destiny that they’re going to stay where they are if they aren’t willing to invest more in the friend in the manager for that franchise concept. It changes the whole mentality changes when you are very focused on aligning incentives. think there’s a compensation design is so important from that standpoint. but also just the steady drum beat of the organization, making sure that

There’s a clear line from where you are today to success and that everybody gets to walk that line with you. Everybody will win if that happens. There’s no replacement for making sure that the incentives are

Dan Rowe (43:51.898)
Yeah. And Epic managers, your company started from your experience growing an emerging franchise clear across the country that only had been around for two years. You grew, you parlayed that with different brands into hundreds of locations and had a big exit because of the people. And now you’re sort of like, that’s, that’s your passion right now is, is helping people figure out how to build high performing teams.

Thank you very much. appreciate all this insight and wisdom. Very generous of you to share your story. Where do people find out more about you? Do you have a website?

Ross Weisman (44:28.087)
Yeah, epicmanagers .com is the best place where they can reach out to us. And we’re on LinkedIn. So myself, Ross Weisman, and my partner, Matt Robinson, who post more than I do, you can find us on there

Dan Rowe (44:40.876)
Well, thank you again. And thanks to our listeners. Don’t forget to like, subscribe and share the podcast and we will see you next time. And Ross, I’m going to introduce you to all of my brands. Like I don’t know why every one of my brands and their franchisees wouldn’t be talking to you about building teams. And actually before we go, you alluded earlier that there’s issues, legal issues of, of, I don’t know if you meant joint employer or where you were going with that, but what’s

What’s the issue that a franchise or has? I don’t see any reason a franchise or wouldn’t give their franchisees every tool to build high performing

Ross Weisman (45:18.)
Yeah, I think that’s the beauty of a company like Epic Managers. And this is why we’ve positioned ourselves the way we have in franchise. We can go across the borders that a franchise or can’t go. We’re a little bit like mercenaries in that way. And we, we can have the conversations about compensation, about hiring decisions, and we’re fully aligned with franchise ors. We know what they’re looking to do. They want to drive consistent brand execution and deliver that promise to customers.

And we know the straightest line, the fastest way to get there is to have great leaders in the unit. And so if they provide us as just another tool in the tool belt, you don’t have to do it yourself. You don’t have to build an in -house team if you don’t want, if you want to bring in and spend some money on the expert opinion on how to get a great leader, there is an option for you now. So we work really well with franchise awards that are emerging, that are large. work with large PE backed groups. work

you know, couple unit location franchisees and the mission is all the same. We want to make frontline jobs better and we want to get great leaders into a great position working for great

Dan Rowe (46:28.598)
Awesome. This is great. Thank you again. I really appreciate it. I will see you soon.

Ross Weisman (46:32.176)
My pleasure.

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