Quick Cash Flow, Investing In The RIGHT Business & Franchising Opportunities

Miss Gabriella, how are you?

Hey.

Do you know Gabriella that Americans will spend $500 million on pet Halloween costumes this Halloween?

That's all?

That's all. Did you buy your pets Halloween costumes?

No, I have cats and I don't take them out of the house.

Hey, pets or cat? Cats are pets. Have you gone online to see what kind of Halloween outfits you could get them?

No, I'm dressing up. Have you, have you seen my bulldogs? My.

I have. They are so adorable.

Ms. Lola is going to be Marilyn Monroe this year. She was Marilyn Monroe before, so.

Oh, gotcha.

Tell me about your.

Hey, thank you so much for taking. Yeah, thank you so much for taking my call today.

You bet.

It was awesome meeting you couple weeks back there. And.

So you know, when I met you, I have a business. I've been in business for about two years, a little over two years and we are relatively successful. I made some moves to that that gave me a decent chunk of money and I've taken some of that and I've implemented it in my business foundation. But what I want to do is I want to look at buying an existing business. I know there's places we can go online that we can see. There's business brokers out there and it doesn't necessarily matter what the business is because I'm looking for something that is employee run and mostly absentee owner. So I would want something in LA where I live, but where I can go in like twice a month or a couple hours a week and let employees run it.

You know, my main business, I deal with people's money and bookkeeping and stuff like that. So I have a foundation in business and decent business acumen. But this is a new territory for me. And because it's new territory, I'm a little bit. No, I'm a lot green and I'm a little terrified. But I don't want to step into something where the top level numbers of smoke and mirrors and that I'm going to walk into something that's going to make me go broke. So I was hoping you could give me like pointers and foundation and how do I approach this in the smartest and most intelligent way possible.

Yeah. So how much do you want to invest.

In? I was looking at businesses that were 300,000 and under because at 300,000 and under I can put down 20% and still have plenty left over to get me from day one to day 30.

How much could you put down total?

60 to 75,000.

Okay.

So yeah, I can do. I can do 75. And I'd be, I'd still be okay, 60. I'd be comfortable.

So the best business for what you described that I've seen, and I have a lot of friends that own them, and I will eventually own a bunch of them too, is storage units. Because you have one or two employees, you know those employees intimately. There's really very little risk. And you can pay them off. If you don't take. Pull the money out, you can pay them off in five years and buy another one. And they're, they're, they cash flow very quick. And you can buy the real estate too. Sometimes you don't have to have them here. If you, are you in Los Angeles. Yeah, you're in Los Angeles. They could, they could be in other places. Like I had a friend who owned a bunch of them up in Oregon and literally had married couples that lived in them and ran them, had U Haul franchises in them. And every three years he, he was paying them off and they were pure cash after that. No surprises? No, you know, you just don't have a lot of theft. There's not. They're easy to inspect and, you know, and check on and they go up in value.

Are you referring to independent.

Companies or you mean like Public Storage or other brand names?

Either one. So you can, there's, there's ones you can. One, you can build one in an area that needs them and they fill up pretty quick. You can do, you know, you can buy a franchise from some of those bigger companies or you can buy an existing independent one. And I would look into all three. With the money you're putting down, you, you, if you had a little more, you could get something that cash flowed a little quicker. But you can start small with these and grow. But they cash flow pretty quick if you're not pulling money out of them.

Yeah. I was looking at the website the last few days when I came across somebody mentioned franchises to me recently. So I came across things like telephone stores like a T Mobile or a Verizon or one of those franchised food, not independent food because those are really hard. But.

I don't know anybody who does well with that that doesn't have, doesn't have to be involved more than you're describing. You want to be. I mean, okay, food is, is a touchy thing. I mean, you have, you, yeah, you have that. You know, you just don't want to. I don't know. I, I wouldn't want to own a lot of food stuff unless I, I was there, there's too much liability. And so, okay, you, there's the phone thing. You have a ton of turnover and staff. You gotta hire salespeople, you gotta hit big numbers to keep it going. The cell phone companies are always changing what they pay you. You have to be pretty aggressive and hands on in that too. I mean, you have to be able to hire people that are really good at selling. And you, you're kind of running a boiler room to some degree. Like somebody walks in there and you're selling them a phone, a charger, a case, and you're switching their plan to something else. And so I just. That isn't a, that isn't a business that, that you could be hands off that in my experience.

Gotcha. Cool. So.

So storage, though, that's interesting.

Storage units are. I mean, I've seen, I have so many friends that have just killed it on, on those and they, you know, they, you can sell them too. They're easy to sell because people are always looking for them. So you could start one too. Like, you could start one, you know, and get a construction loan and kind of do that. You could take a warehouse and make it into one. But people are always looking for storage and more people are moving to the cities. If you, if you kind of do some studies on, on storage and housing and what's happening, more and more people are selling their houses and downsizing and moving into the inner city. And so I mean, I have a whole warehouse that I use as a storage unit. So I literally have like a 4,000 square foot warehouse with all my bulldog art. And you know, I had a big house in Santa Ana. All the furniture from there is in it. And that's kind of what people are doing. So it's not a business that's going to be on the decline and it's kind of recession too.

Yeah. And with the baby boomers and everybody that are turning 60, 70 years old moving into retirement communities, they. They're all downsizing as well.

Yeah. And then you, if you get them going, you pop on a U Haul franchise and that's, that's another little stream of income. But that's more liability and that's something you have to stay on top of all the time. And so right then, you know, there's laundromats, there's.

Yeah, I looked those laundry mats a while ago. Those are good, aren't they?

Well, it's a cash business, so I've, I've owned vending machines and that's. And I had a really close friend that Owned laundromats. And you don't. You don't trust too many people to go in and get those quarters out. So you.

Right.

You're always paranoid. You're always paranoid that people are stealing your quarters. It's the same thing with vending machines. It's like we're. We're. We're a box short on Funyuns, you know, and so. But in those. The margins are so small on that stuff that you got to run it really tight. And that's where storage units are kind of like simple because people just pay every month. They, you know, you have people not paying, you foreclose on their stuff, and you're on a reality show, Storage wars or whatever. But beyond that, you don't have a lot of stress.

That's hilarious. Hey, you mentioned laundry. Let me ask you a question. So the building I live in, they're trying to get us away from using quarters. So we have this app that we're supposed to use that we put money on to run our machines. What do you think of that?

It sounds genius. I hadn't heard of that.

It sounds.

I'll have to.

I'll have to. I'll have to message you the. The name of the app because then someone's using their credit card, putting it there. The app is. I'm sure you pay a little fee for it, but then you don't have to be paranoid about people stealing your cash.

Yeah, but I would. I would be curious. I don't know. I'd be curious in maybe if you're by USC or by colleges, but if you're in lower income areas that tend to make laundromats successful, that clientele might not have apps and they still might be a cash clientele. So the better. The, the people that I know that own laundromats that do really well aren't in the part of town that I would go visit on a regular basis. Basis.

Gotcha.

So you just want to be sensitive to that. But.

Right.

No, I'm, I'm. If there's an app that's cool, I just would want to see that somebody's done that in the inner city or in. In those areas.

Right.

Cool.

I'm trying to think of. Yeah, I think storage units is the only thing that comes in mind. I feel like I'm letting you down a little bit. I should give you like two or three.

It's all good. Other ones, you know, just having the opportunity to confab with you is the highlight of my week.

Oh, well, that's very sweet of you.

I wish that you would dress up your cats for Halloween. That's really what I want.

If I decide to do that, I will take pictures and I will text them to you.

I love it. Thank you so much.

Message them to you.

Do it. Okay. Thanks, Gabrielle.

I'll think about it.

All right, we'll talk soon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.