How to Find Your “Perfect Fit” Franchise with Franchise Coach Faizun Kamal

Web and BeyondCast, the Small Business Digital Marketing and Productivity Technology Show

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How to Find Your “Perfect Fit” Franchise with Franchise Coach Faizun Kamal

Our first interview with franchise coach Faizun Kamal in “Is a Franchise Right for You? What Can You Learn From Franchising? With Faizun Kamal” (Episode 014) discussed how to determine if franchise entrepreneurship is good for you or others you are meeting with. In this interview, we discuss Faizun’s six-step process she describes in her book, The Right Franchise for You, for choosing the best franchise when you’re looking to start your own small business.

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In this Cast | How to Find Your “Perfect Fit” Franchise with Franchise Coach Faizun Kamal

Ray Sidney-Smith, Host

Faizun Kamal, Franchise Consultant
CEO of The Franchise Pros

Faizun Kamal is a franchise coach, nationally renowned public speaker and career strategist. As CEO of The Franchise Pros in partnership with The Franchise Consulting Company, Faizun coaches people nationwide on making the transition from employee to entrepreneur.

She provides guidance to embrace chaos, fear, insecurity and uncertainty as doorways of opportunity to help individuals find their “perfect fit” business based on an assessment of their personal, lifestyle and income goals. She guides clients to move beyond career burnout to build a sustainable career that they love!

Faizun’s drive to make a difference stems from her own personal experience as a corporate refugee. In 2015, after almost a decade in the corporate world, she was laid off. Instead of immediately jumping back into another job, Faizun began a deeply introspective journey to intentionally redesign her career, and her life. Through the world of franchising, she discovered a way to live a life of purpose, passion and profit!

Her experiences as a former Fortune 15 Executive with 18+ years of experience in corporate, multinational, nonprofit & entrepreneurial settings on three continents have made her an inspirational speaker to audiences worldwide. Faizun’s relatablity and authenticity has led her to grow an engaged following of thousands on social media.

The Tory Burch Foundation named Faizun as “A Woman to Watch”. She has been featured extensively on Forbes, The Huffington Post and The Washington Business Journal, among many others. Faizun received her BA in Women’s Studies and Environmental Studies from Mount Holyoke College. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and a Master’s in Business Administration from the Johns Hopkins University. She is also a graduate of Stanford University’s acclaimed Social Entrepreneurship Program.

Show Notes

Resources we mention, including links to them will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.

For listeners of this show, listen to the episode and reach out to Faizun via email for the really generous offer she’s made during the interview!

The Right Franchise for You: Escape the 9 to 5, Generate Wealth, & Live Life on Your Terms by Faizun Kamal

You can follow Faizun Kamal on Social:

• On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faizunkamal/
• On Twitter: https://twitter.com/faizun_kamal
• On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/faizunkamalFRANCHISE/

Raw Text Transcript

Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases.

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Voiceover Artist 0:00
Welcome to web and beyond cast, where small business comes to learn about marketing and managing on the web and beyond with your host gray Sidney-Smith

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:10
Hello there small business owners, entrepreneurs and community. Welcome to Episode 20 of web and beyond cast. On today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about franchising. Again, I have back with me, Pfizer and Kemal from the franchise consulting company. And as you know, franchising is a form of small business ownership that really doesn’t get a lot of love in the economic development space. And so I wanted to just do this series with Pfizer. And so we can get a little bit more understanding of what it looks like in this episode we’re going to talk about is the idea of faisons six step process for picking the perfect fit franchise, Say that three times fast. But for those of you who do not know five zone, I would highly recommend that you snap back to our first episode where we talked about that, about her process of thinking about franchising as a small business owner, a little bit about Pfizer, and though Pfizer is a nationally renowned public speaker, and career strategist, as CEO of the franchise pros, in partnership with a franchise consulting company, buzzin, coaches people nationwide on making the transition from employee to entrepreneur. And so with that, welcome to web beyond cast baizen.

Faizun Kamal 1:23
Fantastic Ray, it’s a delight to be here with you again, my friend one Yes,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:28
absolutely. So I know that you have the six step process, and you are the expert on the process. And so I want you to walk us maybe through maybe what the steps are, and then let’s dig into some of the particulars that will help someone who is thinking about franchising, really get into the process and understand what is necessary to go from zero to owning a franchise.

Faizun Kamal 1:49
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, Ray, one of the things my friend that I find in the years that I’ve been doing, this is why people most people know what a franchise is, because they see them everywhere. When you start to dig, however, a little bit deeper than that, most people get stumped. And they say, Well, I don’t really know what a franchise does, or the way it operates. And most certainly, when I’m speaking with someone who is looking to buy a franchise for themselves, the question becomes, what do I do? Are there steps that I follow? Do I have to do this all on my own? Is there a to use the phrase is there a method to the madness. And the beautiful thing here, Ray, and frankly, this is one of the things my friend that I love so much about this industry. And there are quite a few things. But this one thing in that when I work with someone who does not have that background in franchise ownership, they may never have owned the business in their lives before. This is This looks like a big, tall, scary mountain to them. And they don’t quite know how to begin that accent. And in my book, as you rightly stated, I’ve broken it down into bite sized pieces. So if you’re looking at the elephant and you’re saying I want to eat that elephant, well, you can just go the whole animal down, you have to start biting it off in little chunks sized pieces. And that’s what we do. It’s a very simple process, Ray. But it’s a very effective process. I say to my clients, this process only works if you work it, otherwise it doesn’t. In terms of the first first step, it really begins with you know, the very famous phrase Know thyself. Ancient Greeks, right. When someone first comes to me, Ray, it’s really a simple conversation. So if you came to me and said, Zune, you know, I’ve been thinking about starting a franchise, but I have no idea where to begin. My first question to you is not going to be about a franchise, it’s instead going to be Oh, that’s interesting way. Well, tell me a little bit about you. What do you do? What have you done in the last 1015 years of your career? What industry have you been in? So you know, in the work that you currently do, Ray, give me a sense of what does a day in the life of Ray look like? And in these questions, Ray, what I’m trying to what I’m trying to pull out, what I’m trying to assert in is, what kind of skill sets does this particular person come to the table with? You might say, you know, five Zune. I have been the Vice President of Marketing for ABC Company for the last 15 years. And I have a small team of people that I manage, and there are these discrete marketing projects that I run for my company, and I manage them from start to finish. Um, it just was few things that you’ve shared with me, Ray, I’m able to pull out a couple of things. One, if you’re managing a team People, you’re probably very good interpersonally you might have some skill sets in and around hiring and firing. You might be I don’t know this, you might be good at mentoring others, helping them grow. You’ve already told me you have a background in marketing, that tells me something, you might have said, Oh, you know, I, I managed a little, I manage a bit of a p&l, it’s about $50 million for the company. And I manage that on a yearly basis. Again, what that tells me is operationally, you probably have some skill sets there. So in the first conversation, it’s really me trying to pull out and understand why at this point in your life and career, are you thinking about starting a business?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:45
Are people usually shocked by some of the realizations that have you asking them these questions, and maybe potentially realizing that they have skill sets they didn’t have before that translate better for franchise?

Faizun Kamal 5:58
All the time, my friend, probably one of the biggest questions I get asked is, I have a background in ABC? Is there anything out there for someone like me, right, it’s, it’s because they have only known that thing. And they’ve done that thing for many, many years. And they haven’t looked beyond that. And I will typically laugh and say, I don’t know yet. But in all likelihood, probably there is the beautiful thing, right? With the franchises, you know, when you when you contrast what all of us have gone through, and we were employees, so you’re in a job, and then you’re thinking about making a move, and you look at some job description of a job that you want to get into. And you, you look at the 10 things that the job description lists out, and you say to yourself, Oh, um, you know, seven of these, I can do quite well, two of them, I’m sure I can figure it out, and the one thing, but I’m sure I’ll be able to, I’ll be able to do it when I get into the position. My point is, as employees, we try to force fit ourselves into what the job requires of us. In a franchise, my friend, there is no force fitting, the franchise is what it is. And it requires an individual with a certain with a certain skill set. If you have the skill set. And this is where I the way I liken it ray is in a job situation, here’s your employer potential employer, this is you. It’s not a level playing field by any means. When you look at franchises, however, it’s very much like this, the same way that you as a client are evaluating potential opportunities. The brands are similarly looking at you to try and figure out and say, Would Ray be a top performing franchisee for us if he were to enter our system? So step one, is we conduct what we call your personal franchise analysis, getting a baseline of who you are, what you’re about, what are your strengths? What are your blind spots? What are the things you like to do Ray? What are some things you would rather get your tooth pulled out without lighter cane, then do those things and we all have a right you laugh? We all have them? Once I start to get that sense of who you are. Now I can get now I feel much more comfortable saying huh? Okay, right. Yeah, potentially, there might be some opportunities that are a fantastic fit for you. I don’t know that yet. But I’m starting to get that sense.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 8:30
So after that, in that introspection that that analysis of the of the individual and and potentially sometimes it’s a couple, right husband and wife or maybe potential, multiple, multiple business partners, once that analysis is done, what’s the next step in the process of determining the franchise fit

Faizun Kamal 8:49
at this point, you still have not been scared away by me. At this point, we are going to have you go through a couple of sales and management aptitude assessments, regardless of what the business is, and I work with several hundred brands, right? Regardless of what the business is, you have to come to the table with some with some background, some skill set in management, and a little bit in sales, those two you can’t run away from. So I try to get a sense of what what those skill sets might be like. That, again, gives me that really robust baseline that I’m looking for,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 9:25
do you then get a sense that you have to send people kind of off to get a little bit of that training? You know, do people sometimes go through the franchise analysis, get into the business model design and decision making process and say, Oh, you know what, I don’t have these skills.

Faizun Kamal 9:39
Absolutely. It happens many more times than you might imagine. And, you know, it’s a, it’s not necessarily what they have wanted to hear. But they also understand that franchise ownership is it’s not an easy thing. Running a business. Whether it’s a franchise or not a franchise is not easy. In addition, with a franchise, it can be a pretty sizable investment that you’re making. So if you’re going to do those two key things, you want to be as prepared as you possibly can be for that. So step two, really, I get the assessments back, and then I will sit down with you, my client. And we are now going to build out what we call you just referenced it, your personal franchise business model. Your business model is not the same as a business plan, which many of us have heard about, think of the business models re as I’m walking into our meeting, and I have to paint brushes, and I have a blank canvas in my hand. And through the course of our conversation, I’m going to hand you one of the paint brushes together through a series of questions that I’m going to ask you to better understand who you are, you are going to help me paint a very detailed picture of what does Ray’s Perfect Fit franchise look like? What are race skill sets? He’s already shared those with me in first, in the first step, I take those, what are the things? What are his goals from a franchise, his personal, professional, financial lifestyle, whatever your goals might be? I want to know those things. And then third, last but not least, even though we don’t we are not yet talking about specific brands. What are those specific characteristics of the businesses that you would like your franchise to have? What do I mean by that, you might say, if I zoom in, I am much more comfortable in a business to business setting than a business to customer setting. I would like a franchise that plays in the b2b space. That’s a very specific thing. You’re telling me I put that down. You might say, you know, if I Zune I want to hit this really hard in the first couple of years. But after that, I want to start to hire a small team of people so that I can start to take a backseat. Aha, that’s a very specific element that you just said to me, right? That’s what we call a semi absentee business, in the industry. Right? So these are the kinds of nuances and I go through all of these questions with you. I joke with my clients, by the time we are the end of the second conversation, you’re going to get so sick and tired of me because I have asked you so many, many questions. But that would be that would be step to building your franchise business model.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 12:34
And so then we go into the next step, which seems to be kind of a two parter. Three, and three and four seem to be connected very much together. What does that look like for folks when they are going into the process? What is step three and four? And and how does that work? for folks to kind of get through those stages and validating and doing your due diligence.

Faizun Kamal 12:53
Once you have finished step two, the other, the other parts of the process, three to six re think of that entire process as what we call due diligence. You the client are going to go through this educational research process that I’ll take you through that we call due diligence, where based on the assessments that I have done, have you have what I think you might be a great fit for, I will present you with typically three brands. Three, three seems to be like Goldilocks porridge gray, it’s just right. Two brands are too few and four seem to be too many for most people. Three is that right number where it they’re just able to manage all of the information that they’re being bombarded with, because you’re going to get a lot once you begin. In Step three, we begin due diligence with the franchise ORS. So remember, step two, I now have your business model, I take your business model, and I go into my inventory of brands there, I start to do that first set of matching. And what do I match? I am looking at those brands that I have in inventory whose business models most closely matches yours. So it’s a very intentional step by step process, right? This is not you know, put some blindfolds on and then throw darts in the dark hope to God, it hits the bullseye. That is not what we are doing

Raymond Sidney-Smith 14:22
here. It’s a it’s a Venn diagram, you’re overlapping the right parts.

Faizun Kamal 14:26
I might steal that from you. Yes, very much like diagram, right? We are trying to figure out what are those overlapping parts? Because I don’t know that yet about you. That’s what we are trying to figure out. So step three, we begin the due diligence process with the franchisors I present three brands to you. The brand at that point will then reach out to you to begin that conversation. The very simply read the expectation, when you begin this process with me is every week, you’re expected to do one call with every single one of the brands So three calls, in addition to the three calls you make with each brand, there’s going to be a fourth call that you are going to make with me. This is our weekly touch base. You know, I’m not one of those people, Ray, where I’ll give you some brands, shake your hand and say, great meeting you, my friend, and then I disappear. And you never hear from me again, until at the very end, that defeats the purpose. There is a reason why this industry has been as successful as it has been. And it is because brands are able, with the help of people like me, brands are able to get just the right qualified, just the right skilled people to come into their system as franchisees. So that’s, that’s essentially what I do every step of the way, as I walk you through. So begin that conversation, and boom, now you are in what we call due diligence. Every week, the brand will take you through some specific aspects of the business, that they want you the potential franchisee, to learn and understand about.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 16:04
Fantastic. And so we go through this process of the franchise leading you and then you get to the flip side of that where you go into what you call the validation process or what the industry calls the validation process. And so it’s kind of like dating. One side is doing a little bit of of education. And the other part now is you doing that in the inverse?

Faizun Kamal 16:28
Absolutely, absolutely. So step four. So step three, remember, we began due diligence. Step four is essentially continuing in the due diligence process, but with certain specific things in the process now that I will have you focus on there’s two in particular one, it’s what you just said. And by the way, you i think you know far more about franchising great than you let let me believe you think it’s terms around, you’re throwing it around validation and all that I love it, I love it, essentially, you’re going to get into what I call the heart of the process. And that is validation. Very simply validation is when you are going to be speaking with existing franchisees of the three brands that I have introduced you to, because think about it as your franchise coach. I have hundreds of brands I work with. I know about the brands, but I certainly don’t know all the nitty gritty, the brand rep that you are speaking to every week, they certainly know a lot because they work with the brand. But who is in the most perfect position to share with you, Ray, here’s what a day in the life of someone running this particular business. Here’s what it looks like. Here are the challenges you’re going to face in the first 12 months of business. Here is the point at which I broke even and I got to profitability. Here are some of the things that I wasn’t aware of that I became aware of once I became a franchisee there’s no one better to answer these very granular, visceral questions, then the franchisees themselves. One of the things I’m going to share with you think about this, is there anything else that you are aware of where before you make an investment, whether it’s a stock, whether it’s a bond, whether it’s a whatever, before you make that investment, it allows you It takes the veil off and says come inside, come inside and take a look at how we work before you decide to make that investment in us. There’s nothing else out there in the marketplace that does that. I love that about franchises because my friend if you’re a homeowner, second only to your mortgage, and sometimes it can be more than your mortgage. Investing in a franchise is a sizable financial investment. This is not something I take lightly. If you work with me, I will not let you take it lightly. Again, the point is, there should not be any regrets after you’ve signed the dotted lines. So before you sign the dotted lines, I want you to go through due diligence in the best in the most robust in the most aggressive way possible. So validation. The second thing as you are as you are wrapping up validation ray is the legal piece. Every franchise in order to be able to legally sell franchise units around the country. They have to be registered with the Federal Trade Commission, which is our regulatory oversight body. And as part of this process as part of this requirement, every brand is required to register with the federal government a document called the MDD or the Franchise Disclosure Document.

It is typically two 300 pages thick. It’s a legal document it is not superduper exciting. I joke with my clients you know if you ever have trouble falling asleep at night, cozy right up to the heavens. DD and you will fall asleep just like that. Jokes aside though, it is one of the most important pieces of this process and what it does essentially is the MTD is comprised of what we call sections or, or items 23 separate sections in the document. And each section of the document walks you through some particular aspects of the brand. That again, you as a potential franchisee you need to know about. So for example, one of the first sections we’ll talk about to the management team is here you are getting ready to invest in this brand. But what are you investing in? What are the founders? Who’s the management team? Do they know what the heck they’re doing? You want to know that you will get into something we call item or Section seven. item seven is your average investment. It lays out in great detail. Ray if you want to come on board and join us as a franchisee you’re looking at investing 60 to $120,000. It’ll give you a range. And it breaks down in great detail. Potentially What are all of the items you will need to invest in? Whether it’s equipment, whether it’s vehicles, whether it’s materials, whether it’s probably right, depending on what the businesses, one of the most important parts in the MTD is what we call item 19. Item 19 is the earnings claim. So when clients come to me, the first question is, can you help me find the right franchise? Question number two immediately becomes Can you give me a franchise that helps me make the most amount of money? And what would those look like? And the answer is, I don’t know, I can tell you that this is part of the intent of due diligence. And item 19 lays out the brand lays out for you. We have 100 franchisees in the system. Here’s how much money the top third of franchisees are making, here’s how much money the middle performing franchisees are making. Here’s how much money our lowest performing franchisees are making, they will break that out for you. Why? Again, as you go through the process, Ray, what you’re trying to figure out is okay, you know, faisons walked me through the steps, I have a sense of what the business does. I’m starting to feel really good about what the brand requires of its franchisees I know I have the skill set, I can absolutely do the work well. But I’m investing my money in this, I’m looking at growing this business over the next 10 or so years. Don’t I want to know how much money I can actually make? Absolutely, that is what part of the MTD does. So we take you through this MTD, legal review. The one thing I’ll make mention, and endowed this step Ray, many clients at this stage get super excited and say oh my god, Pfizer, I think this is the one for me. And I say timeout, we are not going to do anything until you have taken that MTD and you have sat down with a franchise attorney. I want you to know what your rights roles and responsibilities are visibly the brand. I am not an attorney, but I work with some of the best in the country. And I’m happy to do an introduction for you with one of them. So that in essence becomes Step four,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 23:18
what you’re talking about here is that once you get through validation on that on on Step four, and get into the FTD, you’re how many fdds does a typical client review, you know, it’s a 200 page tome of documentation. And it’s really good for them to review that in detail with you and by themselves and ask all the questions and then meet with a franchise attorney. How many? How many do you feel like the average client with you reviews?

Faizun Kamal 23:45
I have not yet had a client who has looked at more than five. And this you raise a very good point, Trey, I think there are a lot of people, they come into this process with the mistaken assumption. Faison is going to hand me a laundry list of 1015 brands. And then I just you know run out there and do what I need to do. The intent is not for you to look as an act as many different kinds of businesses you can because it’s that becomes a scattershot approach. As I walked you through, it’s very intentional. The you know the step four builds on Step three, which builds on step two, right? So it’s a very Think of it as a pyramid and you’re going up the pyramid it’s a it’s a big it’s a big mistaken assumption that a lot of people have where they think unless I look at 2030 businesses, I won’t be able to know that is absolutely not true. Because when you go through due diligence, how many of these fdds are you actually going to go through in detail? How many can you actually go through, right? So again, it’s a very specific process. Think of it as Ray when someone begins with me at the beginning. They’re at the mouth of the funnel. Think of a funnel As I take them through the process, the funnel keeps narrowing. Until what we get spit out at the end is that one brand that checks out all of the different things that you want the business to give you.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 25:11
So I misspoke early. I said, that was step five. That was that we were still on set. For one, we’re still reviewing the FTD. And so then we get on from, we feel really confident in this particular brand. And we get into our next step, which is really funding. And what does that process look like for most of your clients as they as they have now, kind of almost wedded themselves to a particular brand?

Faizun Kamal 25:36
Wonderful. And you know, it’s a little bit of a while I call it Step five, Ray? Step five actually happens as soon as I introduce you to brands? Here’s why. Question number one that most clients have, what is the right brand for me? Question number two, how much money can I make? Question number three inevitably becomes? Well, finally, once I have found the right business for me, how am I going to fund it? I’m not sitting on a million dollars cash, it doesn’t cost a million dollars. But whatever the amount is, my intent when my clients begin working with me, is this needs to be a one stop shop. Why? When I introduced you to brands, Ray, I want you to focus all of your time and energies on investigating those brands doing the diligence properly. What I don’t want you to do is you’re doing this with me. But then you are running around like a headless chicken, going to your local bank doing this doing that trying to figure out oh my gosh, where am I going to line up the money to buy the business that I don’t want you to do, it becomes an exercise in frustration, it becomes counter productive. Instead, as soon as I introduce you to brands, the fourth introduction, so three brands, the fourth introduction I’m going to make for you is going to be with my funding concierge. It’s a the business model that I have developed over the years Ray, it’s quite a bit different from a lot of other people in the industry. I like to keep everything in house, because my clients appreciate the seamlessness, if you will, where they’re not having to go to multiple people from multiple different things. Another reason why I introduced my clients to an attorney, you can go to whoever you would like they have to be a franchise attorney, they cannot be a real estate attorney, it cannot be your brother in law, who does, you know, Family Law franchise attorney. But again, by keeping these experts in house, it allows you the client to focus on the one thing that you’re supposed to do focus on understanding the brands. So my funding concierge, who has been in franchise funding, probably longer than I have been alive, at least it feels like it. She will essentially walk you through. She will take your specific financials, everyone’s financial situation is different. She will sit down with you and do a very detailed deep dive into Okay, Ray, you’re sharing with me, here’s how much liquidity you have. Here’s what your network looks like, looks like you own a home. Here’s how much equity you have. Looks like over time you invested this much in a retirement account, whatever your specifics are, she takes all of that. And then she comes up with the funding plan that says Ray, based on your specifics, these three seem to be the top three ways in which to fund your business Once you have found it. And it could be number one, SBA loan number two, a retirement account rollover, number three, right, and she goes down through through that. As I walk you through the process, Ray, you will be working with her hand in glove. Same way you’re working with me. And as we go through, she’s helping you figure out where you say, okay, you know, it sounds like this may be the best option for me. And you start to put together the packaging the documentation required around that as we are moving through your due diligence at the same time. So that would be Step five,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 29:09
and just like and then we close out the whole process and there is this wonderful day you spend with your franchise. What does that look like? What does Step six looks like for for franchise potential franchise owners.

Faizun Kamal 29:21
So step six, you are now you’ve done the bulk of the due diligence. And typically at this point Ray, my clients will have one brand that has risen to the top. They are really starting to feel good about the brand. And the brand is really starting to fall in love with you. At that point they will reach out to me the brands will reach out to me and they will say Zune. We have absolutely loved getting to know Ray. We feel confident that he’s going to be a really great fit with our system and who we are looking for. We would like to extend an invitation for him to come meet To us meet the entire corporate team at our headquarters in what’s known as a discovery day. That’s what it’s called, it’s a discovery day, discovery day is that very last step in the process, right? By the time a client goes to discovery day, they’re probably 95%. Certain, this is the brand that they’re going to go with that 5% is, I call it life, that you’re never going to know 100% about everything, right? But this is the step where you go in and you look into the eyeballs of the people who are going to become your business family, hopefully, for a very long time. What do they like, I think great to work with, are they professional? What kind of resources does the brand have at the corporate headquarters? For me, when I come on board, what type of what type of robust systems and support are they going to provide for me? So it’s that last stage in the process, it’s typically a day, sometimes a couple days, since COVID, most discovery days have become virtual. So you’re doing it online. Some brands are slowly starting to ease and go back into in person. But traditionally, they have been in person where they will ask you to come over to the corporate headquarters, you come back from discovery day, it’s go no go time. So this is where you sit down, we sit down, and you share with me. If you think this is the brand for you, why you think it’s the brand for you, or you come back and you sell a Zune, and I really thought it was the brand for me, but based on these reasons, I feel like it might not be. And that sort of becomes becomes the endpoint, the last step in the process.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 31:43
I’m so curious about some of the pieces here with regard to the whole process. So I want to I want to kind of review this for everyone watching and listening. So the six step process is conducting the personal franchise analysis, then developing that that business model that you talked about due diligence is step three, and four, were due diligence with the franchises then due diligence with the franchisees during that validation process, then we go into funding Step five, and then attending that discovery day. And the as you noted, no Go Go or no go decision point process. Now, in your own world, you have this really under lock and key. I mean, you make sure that the franchise owner potential franchise owner is really helped at every stage of this process. What are sometimes some of the biggest tripping points people have? Is it funding? Is it deciding on a specific franchise once they’ve gone through this process? No matter how good anybody is, life is life. Right? So what are the what are the biggest tripping points people have? And how do you help them overcome that?

Faizun Kamal 32:52
You know, I think my friend, I would have to say, the biggest tripping point, bar none is fear. This is a huge, life changing, hopefully positive, life changing decision, not just for you, but for your family for a very long time to come. Fear is a natural and inevitable part of the process, it typically rears its ugly head, somewhere in the middle, close towards the end, right? And it comes out in the form of doubts. Zoom, and I started with you I was all gung ho, I don’t know, you know, should I be doing this? Should I just go back to corporate America? Right, these doubts, this doubts come up. In fact, yesterday, I was speaking with a client of mine. And this is where she is. And she began the call with me by saying, I feel I’m at a crossroads in the process. Instead, all right, let’s talk about it. I think ultimately, Ray, my friend entrepreneurship is one of those things, you run your own business. So you know this very intimately. In businesses in life, there are no guarantees. You know, I will sometimes hear this from from clients who will say, I just need to have a guarantee that I’m going to make this kind of money that this is going to succeed. And I laugh and I say if that’s what you’re looking for, then I think I’m the wrong person for you. No one can give you that. Right. So I think it’s you know, I mentioned 95% 95% of the certainty comes because you have conducted the due diligence very aggressively. You’ve you’ve peeked into every little nook and cranny. You’ve tried to understand the business models, you’ve tried to understand, what does their ideal franchisee look like and Do I look like them? In terms of skill sets, you’ve done the due diligence, that 5% is what I call the unknowable. It’s what involves grace. Here’s where a little bit of faith comes in right where you say I am That confident in myself and in my abilities that even though I will never know 100% I will still move ahead because I know I can make this work, I can make this successful. So fear, absolutely fear

Raymond Sidney-Smith 35:12
antastic. So as we as we close out, I wanted to just give you an opportunity to share anything that you wanted to with folks, and I know that you have a little bit of something that you wanted to give viewers and listeners. Yes, yes.

Faizun Kamal 35:24
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I would love to be able to offer your listeners a complimentary copy of my best selling book. Of course, if they wanted to go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and bite from there. They’re more than they’re more than welcome to do so. But I would love to send them a complimentary copy. I think once the episodes go up, Ray, you’re good to have my contact information. But for folks, LinkedIn is the best way to find me and connect with me. Email wise I am at a Zune Fei z u n. Fi Zune at the franchise consulting company.com. All small and books and always get a hold of me 443646276. So I welcome folks reaching out I always love to

Raymond Sidney-Smith 36:14
chat. Wonderful, you do my job for me. You are so wonderful. Thank you so much for being here on whether the on Cast button so lovely to be with you. Thank you. All right. So that was Faison Kemal and she is with the franchise pros. Go find her and follow her. Links to her social media profiles are in the show notes. And of course, check out her book. As she noted, she’s offering a complimentary copy. It’s also available on Amazon and elsewhere, the right franchise for you escape the nine to five, generate wealth and live life on your terms. And so with that, thank you all for watching and listening to web and beyond cast where small business comes to learn about marketing and managing on the web and beyond. I’m your host Sidney-Smith Till next time, here’s your small business success on the web and beyond. Take care, everybody