Heroes on the Homefront – Franchising & Business Ownership Benefits

On this episode of Heroes on the home front, Ben Brown. Good morning, sir.

Morning, Jeff. How are you?

It's five stars.

Exceptional.

I think you wanted a break from corporate America.

You got room on the crew for a rookie today? What about broke?

Ben is very involved with the community.

Right on.

Sit back and enjoy this episode of Heroes on the home front. You won't want to miss it. Hello, I'm Jeff Duden with Heroes on the home front. This is a series where we shine a spotlight on the incredible stories of Homefront Brands, owners who are making a meaningful impact in the communities they serve. Today we're hitting the road and heading to Knoxville, Tennessee, to catch up with Window Hero franchisee Ben Brown and his wonderful family. Get ready for candid conversations, real stories, and witness the impact of one person choosing to do well by doing good. Jump in the truck. Let's go meet Ben Brown, the man behind the sparkling success of WindowHero. It all began last November when Ben attended a meet the team day at the Homefront Brands home office in Huntersville, North Carolina. The spark ignited, and with the support of his wife, Ben decided to bring the Window Hero franchise to Knoxville, Tennessee. Today, we'll take you on a journey into the life of Ben Brown, a devoted family man with three children and the proud owner of Window Hero Knoxville. But Ben is more than just a business owner. He's a community champion, always eager to give back. Whether it's volunteering his time or organizing sweepstakes for local schools to win free window cleaning, Ben Brown goes above and beyond. Ben's commitment to the local schools doesn't go unnoticed. Through his sweepstakes, he ensures that the windows of education remain clear, providing students with a brighter view of their future. Today we spend a day in the life of Ben Brown, witnessing the hard work, dedication, and passion that make him not just a franchise owner, but a true window heroes in the heart of Tennessee. Ben Brown. Good morning, sir.

Good morning, Jeff. How are you?

I'm doing great. Not too early, is it, sir?

Not at all.

All great to see you. Ready for a great day?

I am.

Are you? Yes, sir.

Awesome.

Come on in.

All right.

I'm home. I'm coming home. You got magazine people that come.

This is like.

Hey, Jeff, can I get you a cup of coffee?

I would love a cup of coffee.

Awesome, man. Now, do you want the hello, gorgeous or the morning handsome?

I will do the handsome.

Okay. There you go.

All right. Thank you. So what's on tap for us today other than this coffee?

We've got a great opportunity to clean a house just down the road. House wash or roof wash, A gutter clean out and also a window cleaning.

Oh, fantastic. Are we going to get a chance to go by the school where you did the charity work from the sweepstakes?

Yeah, Hard Valley Academy. So it's gorgeous school. It's going to be a gorgeous day. Thousands of windows you're going to see, so the sun's going to be shining bright off of them. It's going to be beautiful.

Fantastic. I'm really looking forward to it.

Good, man. We look forward to it as well.

I know it's really early, and I know you've got a full schedule, but I'm looking forward to meeting Brittany and the kids this morning for a minute before they get to go to school. So I really appreciate you welcoming us into your home.

Yeah, man, we appreciate you guys being here. And let's go look around for a couple minutes before they come down.

That'd be great.

So Cooper's 10, Jeff, and he plays baseball, football, a bit of basketball. Loves to play golf as well. Hutch is seven. He loves just about everything Cooper does. So they love all kinds of sports. Always being active. We're outside a ton, so. And then Caroline, I mean, she just looks up to her brothers a ton. So every time she we're outside playing, she's picking up a bat, picking up a ball, throwing it, running around, chasing down. We have a little pond in the backyard, Jeff, and so this is one of the fish we caught. So our boys love fishing. We love going back out there. We got a pond over there, pond back here. So we're always outside, always kind of in nature, so we love it. So that's Cooper with the fish. And Hutchinson always compares. Who has a bigger fish.

Well, that will continue through their life, hopefully.

Yeah, definitely. Cool. All right, man.

Good morning, Brittany. I'm Jeff Duden.

Nice to meet you, Brittany.

My pleasure. Thanks for letting us into your home this morning.

Awesome.

Ben, there are lots of options to get into business. Why did you choose franchising?

You know, I've been asked that question a lot, and it's one of the things I talk about fairly regularly when people ask me this conversation, it's just, you can go buy a pressure washer, you can go buy a truck, and you can clean windows. For me, the model that windowhero built, the support team, is incredible. I can't hire a marketing team. I can't have a call center. I can't hire an operations team or someone to kind of say training team. And Things like that. Those are things that I want to be able to start a business and utilize my capabilities. What I'm really good at or know that I'm, you know, want to really focus on and then also use those other pieces to help me.

I think that Ben feels called to help others in this way and work for himself. I think he wanted a break from corporate America, to be honest. And, you know, I can't say that I blame him.

We, we did a lot. I mean, I say a lot of soul searching, but more or less, you know, a lot of thought process from, you know, last June till November of trying to figure out what I really wanted to do. And, you know, passion is the key. And it's not to say passion to be a pressure washer or passion to be an owner. It's more about a passion of impact. You know, what are you going to really sell yourself into?

What advice would you have for other people who are pursuing a similar path, maybe with similar backgrounds? And you're coming up on your one year anniversary, so what would be your one year anniversary thoughts? What advice would you give to other people who are considering maybe taking an entrepreneurial leap through franchising?

My advice would be for the partner to be very supportive. Just getting on board early and having those conversations often. What does this look like for our family?

What advice would you have for somebody?

If you have a partner, you have to have that door of communication. I tell it with my team as well. Like tell me where you are, what you need, how your day is. For us with the kids, if we don't communicate with their schedules and our schedules and everything going on, something's gonna get missed.

What do you want for Ben and yourself out of this business?

I think above the material things of hoping that it succeeds and that it provides for our family. I think the biggest thing is if in 10 years you could just say it provided for other families.

We haven't had a lot of change. We've had to make sure we're living within our means, starting a new business, but at the same time, it hasn't affected our kids. We've actually felt like we've had a lot more family time.

Yeah.

With her job change, with her ability to be home on the weekends, you know, me being more flexible, what I'm doing, I'm not traveling at all. So we've really had a lot more family involvement, I think.

Well, thank you both so much and again, thank you for opening up your home to us.

Yeah.

Jeff. Yeah.

You ready to do some work?

I am. You have a shirt for me?

I do.

Okay.

Well, off we go, man. I'll put this on and we'll get to it.

Sounds good.

Do one more cup of coffee.

There you go.

All right. Hey, oh let's go let's go hey, oh let's go, let's go we won't stop no, no, no Take the world and make it our we'll shine brighter than the hey, oh let's go hey, Gina.

How are you doing this morning?

Thank you.

How are you?

Hey, Gina, this is Jeff Duden, the window hero.

Nice to meet you, Gina.

Nice to meet you.

Yeah. Thanks for letting us be out here today. It's a beautiful property.

Thank you.

Yeah. How do you know Ben?

We met 15 years ago through the school system, and he was working with the. With playground equipment, and he helped us.

Out quite a bit.

So fantastic.

When Ben told me that he was starting Window Hero and told me all about his new business, I knew that we needed to have him out. And look at our house. We've never had our house professionally cleaned before. We had it painted three years ago, but since then, we've had, you know, the gutters are full. We have moss on our roof. And so I knew with Ben and his passion of starting this business that that was who we needed to get to come clean our house. I knew that whenever Ben started that he would really do well with it, and I knew that if he was starting this business, that he definitely had a passion for it. So when Ben was with us as the playground representative and also as a parent, he always was involved with the school and the community. And since he started WindowHero, he's been in several different schools and cleaning the outside of the schools. In fact, he did our school when he started the business. So he is very involved with the community and super excited about what he has in store.

Ben, I know you've got a great business going here in Knoxville, Tennessee, with WindowHero. What does a day in the life look like for you running this business?

You know, Jeff, each day is a little bit different, man. Right now we've got a great team of three people. We're hiring another person. We're training, going through this process of setting up our team, making sure they understand what they need to do and really making sure they have what they need to be successful for the day. So we enjoy just coming out here, beautiful mornings like this, and just having that ability to, you know, have a conversation with the guys and see what they're doing with the day, and Seeing how I can help them out.

Yeah, it is beautiful. Now, you had a sales background before this, correct?

I did.

What did that look like?

You know, I started my career selling commercial playgrounds. So those big community parks you see, big playground structures. That's what I did for a long time. I've got a lot here in town that my kids still go to, and it's a really cool concept. But then I started getting into more of a software background in cybersecurity. So I've always been in sales, always been in that world of opportunity is what I call it.

Great.

Your business has done particularly well because you've networked right from the start. You got out there, you got in your BNI group. You have a good reputation, a lot of respect, and a lot of people in the community. So for you, it was a natural transition from selling software or playgrounds to. To developing a window hero business.

It was still a challenge, though. It was fun, but a challenge of doing so. But I really focus on the community aspect, giving back to my community, talking with community leaders, working with schools. My mom was a teacher, an educator growing up. So I really wanted to focus on that because there's a lot of need of those school systems and individual schools that my kids go to. So I really focus on kind of giving back to them. And that really helped us get our name out there. Sure. Letting people know what we do, who we are, and then having kind of my experience and my background to kind of go off of and has really allowed us to have a much easier ramp up in that conversation.

Yeah.

Is this the first business you've run?

It is, yes, sir.

Okay, so you got your. You're coming up on a year. You made it, you know, you made it a year. As an entrepreneur, what have been some of the biggest lessons you've learned? And I know it's probably. You probably have too many to pick from, but if you could pick just one or two.

I've learned that you need to control what you can control.

Okay.

If you can't control it, it's out of. Out of your wheelhouse or not within your realm of possibility of what you know you can do, you're gonna get in trouble. So I focus on what can I control.

In the first year of your business, has there been anything that's been particularly memorable for you?

We've done a lot of big buildings that I would not see myself doing the first year. Okay. You know, we've done a lot of community give back elements that just kind of happen by Just, you know, I don't think we could take on.

Yeah.

So a lot of these things are new to us because we're just learning what can we do? What are the possibilities as far as just a one specific moment? You know, for me, you know, my kids love it. You know, they're always getting. Wanting to get back in the truck and ride the truck at times.

Oh, that's great.

They always wanted to help out. So for me, you know, the big moment right now is really just kind of seeing the impact you're having on the homeowners, my kids, family, and the community.

Yeah.

So all as a whole. Yes, it's been a great thing.

Just from a community standpoint, for me, that's fantastic. You know, we talk about it in training. Business ownership is full contact, and there's things coming at you every day, and. But even inside of that, does it feel good to you to know that you're the boss, your destiny is within your control, you've created some freedom. If it's up to you, and you make this business work, you're doing something that's impactful for your family and your kids and everybody. Everybody around. Does that feel good to you?

It does feel good. I mean, there's definitely days where it's a challenge, but that challenge is where I really like to thrive. So you ready to go? Let's get started.

Let's clean this house.

Yeah, sounds good.

All right.

Hey, Lonnie, this is Jeff Duden.

Nice to meet you all.

He's the part of window hero.

Hey, my pleasure. Nice to meet you, Noel. Yeah. All right, what do we got going on today here? We're just doing a roof wash. Then after the roof wash, we're gonna be cleaning some interior, exterior windows. All right, well, you got room on the crew for a rookie today? All right, well. Oh, from what I've heard, you're not a rookie, though. Well, you know, I'll let you be the judge of that.

Right. All right, Jeff, you ready to watch the window?

I'm more than ready.

All right, man, so here's your tools of the tray. You haven't scrubber here, and a squeegee. Okay, so first you want to start with a scrubber.

Okay.

Really rinse that and scrub that window up and down and then left and right? Yes, sir. All the way to the edge, all.

The way to the bottom, correct?

Yes, sir. Now, what we're going to do as well is we want to come in here with our rag, all right. Kind of rub down those edges, because we don't want to pull that water all the way to the edges. So we're going to kind of take one finger.

Okay.

Wipe it down that edge, the top edge, and the outside edge.

Got it like this?

Yes, sir. Straight down. You're right handed, correct?

I am.

Okay, so you want to start here at an angle. Pull it up to each edge and start to fan that motion down. Just let that water come down and start to turn and keep that going. Then you take that rag, wipe off those edges. You see any little spots on the side there?

Okay.

You can. On this side, you pull it. Go parallel with the window sill edge.

Yeah.

Or the framing edge.

Yeah.

And then just go straight down with it.

Okay.

It's not too bad. Two windows in. You're not. Not.

But I broke. I broke the.

It's a little quick connect.

I broke the. Oh, okay.

All right.

There you go.

So there you go. And then just snap it right in.

There you go.

Yeah.

Looks good. It was cleaner than it was before.

Yeah. Well, it's. Thank you.

True, true.

And then you have now. Now Noel can come and actually do it the right way.

No one wanted to clean up after, but hey, good try.

All right, well, thank you.

Yes, sir. Thanks, Jeff.

Yeah.

It was really nice to meet you. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, Great work and appreciate everything you're doing. Standards are clearly high out here. And, you know, windowhero is a home front brands company, so it means a lot to us. So thank you.

Yeah. Awesome.

So, Ben, one of your secrets to your success is that you've done a great job in the community. You've done some work at a high school. Can we go over there and check out? You can show us what you did over there.

Yeah, man.

And. And you know, how you made a difference for those people.

Yeah. Just a couple miles away. Let's hop in.

All right. Mr. Cox, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Yeah, yeah, my pleasure. Jeff Duden. So I understand that Ben and his Window Hero franchise has done some great work out here at the building for you. Can you tell us a little bit about what they did?

Ben contacted us because we had won a sweepstakes contest, and so that was pretty awesome for the community. And he was able to come out here and just take care of the things we couldn't even touch just because we just don't have the capabilities of getting up there and taking care of it. So Ben was able to come out here and just beautify the front of the school, the windows, getting all that. And, you know, even went Way above and beyond. And we had hornets nests up there that they were able to knock down for us. And so just did a great job just making these windows clean and making this the campus really spark. It's a beautiful campus. And they were just able to really make it shine as you drive in. It was really nice of them. Appreciate them. Ben reached out to us and said that we had won or we were one of the schools that had won the contest. And so he brought his Window Hero service out here to us within a few days because he knew school was starting up. So that was an even bigger thing and even better thing that he could have done for us because he knew that school started the next week. And so he was able to get Window Hero out here to clean our building and clean the windows and.

Do.

Everything we could to beautify the campus.

So, Ben, we're out at Hardin Valley Academy High School here today, Knoxville, Tennessee. You ran a sweepstakes for people to get free work. Can you tell us a little bit about how that worked?

Yeah. So I coordinated with a lot of school principals here locally, really wanted to offer back to the community, finding a way to really clean these windows. Because a lot of schools out there that have a lot of cobwebs, dirty windows, just things that they can't get maintained. The school system doesn't maintain it. They leave it onto the schools to take care of it, and they're not going to. So I really wanted to coordinate with all the schools, the principals and the PTOs and foundations out here and really was able to have a lot of feedback and they were really interested in doing so. So we just put it out there on Facebook. And for the ones who wanted to participate, Harden Valley had a great showing. They had a lot of parental involvement, school involvement, just a lot of buy into it. They really wanted to win the sweepstakes. And so we were able to come out here right before school started. It was really the key focus was welcoming the the kids back to a school that was fully cleaned. So it was awesome. So as you can tell, there's a ton of windows out here. It took a lot of cleaning to do, but we were really proud to give back to Harden Valley. It's an area that we are usually in a lot is my family. So we're here, you know, baseball games along with in Farragut as well. So we have a lot of involvement in this area. So it's a really cool, really cool process for us to be part of.

Ben and his staff and Window Hero. I mean, they. It's five stars. Exceptional. I mean, they did everything that we could have ever asked for them and they didn't need to.

Like, that was.

That was not something they had to do. And so we are very appreciative of them and what they've given to this community and what they've given to this school and the support they've shown us. So definitely tremendous. Five stars, two thumbs up.

Whatever.

Whatever the. Whatever I need to say, I mean, they've just been fabulous.

Ben, we're so proud of you and we're so thankful for you. You chose to build your business community first, which aligns with our values perfectly. You came out here to the school, you did things that they needed that they couldn't possibly do themselves, and you continue to build a powerful business from the foundation up right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. That's why you are our hero on the home front and we thank you for it. Alright, I'm gonna head out. We've got to go back to Huntersville. We got homecoming coming. I'll see you in about three weeks.

Yes, sir.

All right. Okay, take care. Yes, sir.

What a day it's been here in Knoxville, and I can't help but feel inspired and uplifted by the incredible people we've met. Spending time with Ben Brown, the force behind Window Hero Knoxville, has been nothing short of remarkable. It was a pleasure to spend time with Ben's amazing family, meet one of his satisfied customers, and chat with a high school school principal about the positive impact of Window Hero on the community. To our viewers, thank you for joining us on this journey. This is just the beginning of Heroes on the home front. I'm Jeff Dutton and it's been an honor sharing these uplifting stories with you. Until next time, stay inspired.

That's a wrap.

That's a wrap. All right, Sam.