Why Most People Never Change Their Lives

I think everybody that finds success has some sort of painful moment in their past that maybe they didn't recognize the turn, but when it turns into fuel instead of pain, it can make tremendous things happen. It's the breakthrough, the brick wall for an entrepreneur. Tom Brady being last pick. And then you go into like creatives, like Einstein being said that he's dumb. Disney was said that he's not creative. And so if they all could go back to that moment and embrace it and say, all right, well, that's it. And I use that as fuel and I continue to use it as fuel, then it allows you to break through the brick wall.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Unemployable Podcast. I'm Jeff Dudan. If you started as a journalist at a daily newspaper and if you moved to a PR firm and at 27 launched your own PR firm, No Limit Agency, a firm that would evolve into Mainland, a content marketing platform company that includes public relations, publishing, and a content publication platform that is all entirely about franchising. Your name could only be Nick Powells. Welcome, Nick.

What a great intro. I love that.

Is it all true?

It seems to be. I feel like, okay, travel with me and when I speak, you, you did do that part and then maybe we just talk together on stage.

Yeah, that would be great. Look, when you're using AI, you got to, you know, sometimes it'll throw a rando fact in there and I'll be like, oh, that's really interesting. I didn't know that about Nick. And then you come in, then now it's— that's because it's not true. But look, we're all dealing with AI, but welcome and thanks for being on the show today.

Thanks for having me. It's awesome.

Yeah, absolutely. Here's the opening question. How has traditional PR evolved to work with or compete with social media?

Boy, it's a tough question. So let me go back to the foundation of what No Limit— it was called No Limit Media Consulting when it started. The premise at that point was, could we use social media as a place to engage with members of the media to get them to write about our clients. And so I did a whole bunch of weird case studies to figure this thing out. We were building out MySpace profiles as first name, whatever the franchise was, last name franchise. There was no business tools at the point, but it was interesting because we were actually using social early on to connect with franchise buyers through just proactive outreach, which, you know, that's basically what LinkedIn has turned into today. The big term with— if we use social media as the term that got missed is every brand has media, very few brands have social. So the connection that I would make, you walk into a bar and if you're like, my brand's great, People are like, what is this guy talking about? But when you sit down and you have a beer with someone and you, you actually have a conversation or you ask them a return question and it's a, it's a volley experience, that's a social experience. But brands, for whatever reason, can't figure out a voice to actually have that discussion. So you look at the, the social media for brands that has the highest level of engagement, it's, it's you. It's like, when Jeff posts online, it's Jeff posting. It's not, not the brand or brands that you represent. It's you. It's you interacting with someone. That, that's what drives the highest interaction. And brands can't figure that out. So I say that because social media never even formed. It's just media. People transformed into being the delivery of news. And now if I, if I flash forward from 2008 when this thing started to now, the value of the journalist is almost gone because you and I could go online and say, hey, we saw this car crash, or hey, we take the news over this weekend of this poor lady and the bungee jumping that hit news before it was news because it went social first.

And so therefore, I hate to ask. Yeah, I didn't see it.

Oh, don't go, don't go, don't go look on TMZ. It's awful.

Okay.

But the point is like, it was, it was the news spread through social, not through the journalist. And so if I flash, flash forward from where I started the company to where it is today, the, the impact of a journalist has far changed. And so when it relates back to franchising, I would've said PR can be lead generation-ish, call it 15 years ago. Now it's just lead awareness. It's not the generator of leads. So the whole industry has shifted. I, disclosing too much information, but I live in the Chicago Tribune building in Chicago. That used to be a building that was reserved for the Chicago Tribune, but it's gone. Like everything has changed drastically. So that's, social media allowed you and I to be members of the media without having to be credentialed. And that's been the giant shift.

Well, it, with accessibility of the technology, the iPhone, uh, or, uh, band, the, the high bandwidth internet, I mean, reality TV. First of all, I, I guess everybody wants to look at people like them. You know, you, you, we tend to look away from the, I guess, the canned celebrities now, and we are looking for that crazy person that's,, that we perceive to be like us, that's doing something interesting, that has a good message. And it just seems like people get their 15 minutes like so easily these days, and there's so many of them. So as a marketing and PR professional, um, does this, what opportunities does this create for you? And then also what challenges?

First, I, I wanna make a comment on the reality television cuz you You were there. You did Undercover Boss.

That's right.

I will never forget this moment. We had two clients on there the same week. I get a call from the CMO of one of them. They're like, you got to get to Flint, Michigan, because the CEO shut down a restaurant on national TV. I was like, shit, I got to get over there. So I'm literally at the airport. I get a call from the other, other client. They're like, you got to get to Philadelphia. He just had a mental breakdown on TV. And it's like, all right, well, what was the magic of that? And why do you need the high drama? They don't let you sleep for the first 3 days. So the Wednesday of every filming, because we ended up having a bunch of clients on there, every Wednesday was this high drama moment because it made the CEO go sleep deprived and then hit him with this moment, which that's why TV sells, because someone wants to see someone that is powerful seem to be in a vulnerable moment. Right? So that's, that's the formula. And once you figure out the formula and how these things work, it, It's, it's fascinating just to, to see how we have to pull that out. Or that's what, that's what human beings wanna see. Opportunity. Well, one, I, I over-indexed on AI. So 1851 as a platform is, is very well integrated into the AI channels. We kept it as an authority. We don't sell advertising on the site. That was done on purpose so that we could lend credibility when it came time to, to need it. And so we've paid off on there. And the opportunity in my mind is that as much as AI is simplifying content and storytelling, I don't think it's gonna be able to do this. Like it can create us, it could probably recreate us, but it won't be authentic. And people still desire the authentic side. And so the opportunity is to take all these journalists that will be laid off, that will lose their jobs, or PR people. I think, I think PR people people will be out of jobs in the next 3 to 5 years as well. And so we've built a landing pad where we can still be content creators in a world that can coexist with AI and hopefully still have positive impact back. So I'm over-indexing into where the future's gonna go. Hopefully I'm right. Um, but it leaves, leaves tremendous opportunity because there is a lot of talent out there. They're just displaced cuz what they grew up and what they know might not be the job that exists today.

For people that don't know 1851 Franchise, it is a publication platform or was originally a publication platform. So somebody like me could find their way onto it through you or create, create an article and then you would use that to promote brands.

Is—

how has it evolved since the last time we've talked several years ago? Is it a lead generation platform? Is it a marketplace?

Yeah.

Good question. How are you using 1851?

So the original premise was the, the way, the way that it got even got created was we were doing all this PR for clients and a press release, or we interview a franchisee and do like a Q&A with them. It lived on shelves. The other issue that I had, we had, I, I could probably go down the pathway of talking a lot about this. We had a client that was like, why were we not in the Wall Street Journal? Our competitor was in there. I was like, okay, can we leverage fair use, which means we could take a little bit of the content of a story legally and address what we would've said had that client been on there so that we can insert them into or give them a voice on that discussion. So the original two reasons 1851 are created is like a place to actually distribute the content and a place for us to have voice. And then through that fair use side, we were like, all right, well, we could aggregate content. So now PR agency X gets you the Wall Street Journal and you're like, that's great. And then it usually dies. It's not really integrated into franchise marketing or part of the brand story. Maybe there's an as seen on, on the website, but it's very limited. So could we take that piece and reignite life to it by tying digital advertising into it and say, okay, who's the audience that we actually want to read this piece? Let's put life against it. So that's where it starts.

So just to be, just to be clear, so, so let's say I get a placement in the journal, it's going to be behind a paywall probably, so I can't really use it, I can't link to it, it's not live. But 1851 gave you a platform to be able to, to get a placement and then constantly use the placement and use lead magnets or things like that to bring people back to it, probably have some tracking on it, and, and really make it a useful marketing tool.

Yeah, because we had a third-party validator say this, this has credibility, whatever the interview or story was. And if it's blocked, then there's a limited audience. Maybe, maybe the audience that saw it in the moment might have reacted, but could we actually put it to work? And that's, that was the, that was the premise. And then it advances. So it's still Trade Magazine on the front. We don't sell any ads. Nobody can buy content on the way that we tell stories. So think of it like like a regular newspaper. It's unpurchased material. And then we built a tech platform on the backend that now, I mean, we're going insane on what we're doing. Like we were disrupting the website builders, especially in franchising where a website could cost $25,000. It's $250 a month and we can build a website in really a day or less because we took all the websites that we built, we've turned 'em into templates and now we're using AI to build the generator of the content so that we can stand up a website. So we're a tech platform on the backend and on the frontend it's a trade magazine. And so it's, it's really where, go back to the business theory that I had, it was that we have to find a way to drive revenue back to media publications. What would a world look like if we were selling content creation for brands on their brand page and still being a, a player in the media? And frankly, it allowed me to, tap into— what I love is being a journalist and being a storyteller, uh, without having to give that up for being on the dark side.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's fascinating. And, um, what, um, and then, and then as that has evolved, do you still have the Estate Envy platform as well?

Yeah. And I'll— honestly, where I've struggled to really hit the runway that I wanted, franchising was great. It's a B2B platform on 1851. Let's, let's build content that will resonate with a franchise buyer, get them educated, get them into the funnel and get them to convert. The theory was we could do the same in other categories and we have like Estate Envy is everything the home. And so we've taken companies like ServiceMaster and done exactly the same thing. We did it with Christmas decor where if you search for Christmas Decore in a market, Lowe's, Home Depot owned the search term. There was no way they compete, but we were able to lift the brand up by using the same content platform. The challenge is there's still too much work to be done in the core business. So we haven't diversified the portfolio as much as we have because we have Estate Envy, we have Room 1903, we have Stash Cow. Stash Cow was going to be wealth and finance, which we've had little entry points into it. But from a labor standpoint or a talent pool, we haven't been able to duplicate— how do we find someone that can act as a brand president and lead these business modules forward? So yes, they exist. Yes, they're there. They are not as strong as a business platform as 1851 is yet. Yeah.

Let's talk about talent for companies like yours in media marketing. Are on one hand, I could see where there'd be an abundance of people that are excited to use these new tools and to bring them to bear. On the other hand, I could say that there'd be people that'd be concerned about the longevity of the career, and maybe they're looking at it and they were heading towards a marketing career and a digit— now they were digital and social media and all the things. And now it's like, well, you know, what's going to be available in 5 years? What has that done to your staffing? What has it done to talent procurement? Have you changed the type of person that works well for you? I mean, do you need somebody that's radically curious and, you know, you don't need the coders anymore? Talk to us about, you know, your staffing journey and what's working and what's not.

So if I said, I really do believe the vision behind the technology and the content of 1851 is fantastic. I would, I would place a large wager, if not all, all of my net worth on the viability of the vision. But a vision is only as good as the people that you can fit into a vision. And so there is definitely a gap between what our technology can do and finding the people to get there. And the way that I would put it is take private equity or wealth management to some degree, finance degrees, harder degree to get. You take doctors, hard degree to get. Lawyers, hard degree to get. Entrepreneurs are crazy, so they don't need the degree. They can just be mentally unstable but break through the brick walls. And then you get into what a traditional agency would hire. And so call it the easiest major that exists, which is a general communications or marketing major. And so the depth of people that come out of the education system is not that of other industries. And then you have the battle of the logo, that there are giant agencies that have swallowed up other ones and become giant businesses. And so in a major city like Chicago, which is where we're at, we, we have to compete against those agencies to get the top-level talent. And then as an emerging agency, we're also asking people to hustle and have grit and want to work hard and be okay with the term KPI. And so all of these things go in there that the general person that graduated in college that I want to be in PR thinks it's press releases and events versus our disruptor is it's, it's really sales pitching, building relationship with media, and then constantly pressing it over and over again in the, in the PR sense. So the vision, I think, is super sound. Finding the people to align with the vision has been greatly over-challenging because of can we find them and do we have the budgets to pay them? And I'll say like the salary, we've had $300,000 a year employees and the dollar doesn't mean much different than someone that's maybe paid $150,000. And so the variance in other industries is significant. The more that you make usually comes with the more impact that you can have to the business. It's not like that in this industry. So very long-winded to say PR or marketing or creative industry is very, very, very challenging. But I will say the, the potential silver lining is because we put consultancy first before we sell tactics, uh, we're pretty stable right now. And I can see a lot of unstable agencies going through layoffs at a higher pace right now. So if we're smart, this could be our chance to J-curve it and get— acquire some of the better talent, give them a landing pad where we're focused on the future, not the past. So Challenging is the term. Unsolved is really the mystery that we have right now.

While we're talking about talent, let's talk about you a little bit. I— serial entrepreneur doesn't even say it. I mean, you were starting— you started an online music magazine early on. You were constantly starting businesses even while you were employed. And, um, you continue to evolve and you just rattled off some other businesses that you've started or, or service lines. What is it that you've identified about yourself that makes you so thirsty to create?

So it's probably two main ingredients. One is crazy, because I really do think you have to be crazy to be an entrepreneur. Secondly is just Frustrated maybe is the word, but I— there are so many things that frustrate me on the way that humans or clients get serviced. And so it allows me to see a gap. And then because I'm crazy, even though I'm going to go into a complete tornado storm of competitors just slamming me. Be probably because of my foundation. I'm like, I don't, I don't care. I'm, I'm going for it. I want to make a difference. And so I'm motivated, heavily motivated on trying to make things better when I see something that is broken. So that's like crazy and frustration leads to the outcomes. But like, I mean, I literally have tattooed on my arm. It's not gonna open easily, but it says equals happiness on my arm. And so I have that as a reminder that like, stop and smell the roses. Don't go like crazy all the time. Take a moment and appreciate what's around. And that's been important. But yeah, I would say a mix of crazy and frustration has allowed me to keep coming up with something that I'm like, okay, that's broken. How do we fix it? Uh, question mark. I think, I think we're all chasing that. I mean, if the, the line, my, my wife will, uh, probably laugh at this. Um, I say, look, I'm, I'm happy in personal. Everything I'm happy with personal, my kids, I'm happy. My wife, I'm happy. My weird hobbies, I'm, I'm happy with all that is happy. And then she goes, well, how you doing at work? I'm like, I'm frustrated because I can't get to where I see this light. I just can't get there. So there is a, there's a question mark there, but I think what, what equals happiness is trying to find content in small micro moments. And so happiness doesn't have to be every moment of a day, but stopping And smelling the roses or appreciating the roses or having gratitude for how far or how little you've come is what equals happiness.

Yeah. So I'm definitely in the fourth quarter of my career and I'm, I don't see overtime coming. The fourth quarter is going to be plenty. And, uh, you know, so you, so now you start to study and you start to listen to podcasts and you start to hear people say, you know, over and over again, once you, once pe— the, the most unhappy people are is when they've just achieved their, their goals, their dreams, their vision. Because now the prize is, is now you've got it, whatever you perceived you thought it was gonna be. You sell your company, you make some money, you, getting an award, whatever it is, you, you, you've achieved that big goal, that pinnacle at some level. And like people, you just don't know what to do. Like you literally, and, and I mean, it is so true that money can't buy happiness. Now it can, it can make, it makes life easy. I mean, I've tried it both ways, you know, I prefer with, but you know, with is, you know, hey, You know what, I was walking around with the wife this morning and it's like, we need mulch. And I'm like, you can call somebody and they will have it and they will bring it and it won't be me. I will not be mulching. Right. And, uh, so yeah, I mean, like there's, there's things like that, but I gotta tell you, happiness is such a fleeting and interesting construct in terms of, because if you really want to feel fulfillment and satisfaction, then you have to struggle. And by the virtue of the fact that you're struggling with, I mean, you, you've bit off more than you can chew. You've tried something, you started something before you should have, or something just got hard and you stuck in there and you overcame it. And you're like, wow, you know, I'm a little beat up. I'm kind of sweaty. It's a little bit hard, but like we made it through. And hopefully you do it with people that you care about or people that you respect or people that are on the journey with you. And all of that's great, but like at the end of the day, you're not happy when you're struggling, when you're worried about making payroll. So it's, it's really a, I mean, I think, and the older you get, I think the more, the more interested you become in what's on the other side of that equal sign on your arm.

Yeah, I agree with you. I'm grateful that I recognized that life was going to be turbulent and short and limited early on so that I could have this North Star of appreciating the moments. I, I, I could die tomorrow. A lot of people don't live that way. They live like they have all the time in the world. I mean, I, I agree with you on the, on the money part. I mean, I, I'll share one of my weird hobbies because my, my 11-year-old is into it right now. No, it's, it's, it's weirder-ish. 1989 Upper Deck was a year of Ken Griffey Jr.'s rookie card. It came out. I remember for my 9th birthday, I was 9 in 1989. My dad took us to a baseball card show and there was a Rookie of the Year, this guy Jerome Walton, and I got his autograph on this 1989 Upper Deck card. So I have wonderful memories of these cards and they were so expensive. We didn't have much money, so I couldn't get it. So now we bought the set and we're sending out all the cards in the mail to these old players to ask them to sign the card. And we're getting like 10 back a day. But the joy of going to the mailbox with my 11-year-old and like seeing who, who sent us an autograph card and trying to work on the set is so fulfilling, it's not really money. It's more like just something that is enjoyable and to pass the time and do it with someone that you care about. But that's where it's like, I really, I really get jazzed up about that. I'm like, that feels good. And then you can go into work and have another client say, where are my leads and why am I not growing? And it's like, all right, I'm going to get to go home and work on my 1989 Upper Deck set tonight. It's not even going to bother me anymore. So that's where like, I, there's no definition of it. And I think the definition is the same for everyone. Heard some celebrities say recently, it was Marty, what's his name? The comedian, Martin Short. He said, because he's lost his wife through cancer, his daughter just committed suicide. He lost his— best friend. Yep. Wow. And people are like, we're so sorry for you, Marty. And he goes, but I've had so many good things in life. He goes, I feel that everybody has the same scorecard at the end of life, that all the bad things that I've gone through, I've also had tremendous good things. And he goes, I think it's an even score for everyone at the end of these things. And so sometimes someone might perceive like I have more money or power than someone else, but they might have the peace of sitting on their porch at night, not having to worry about how am I going to go get that other dollar, or the pressure that goes alongside like this fake scorecard of money. And so that, that, that connects with me, you know.

I think that's an interesting concept because nobody gets out alive. So, and I've had the occasion to think about that lately with some people around me passing and you're like, okay, well, how old were they when they passed? How much of their life did they get? How much of their life did they get to live? How much was, how much do you perceive was left unlived? And, but at the end of the day, I mean, I'm 58. Look, I mean, you know, you, you, when you see, I mean, people, people get into their 60s, they're dying all the time. 73, you know, I, you know, it's like I, I'm definitely in the fourth quarter any way you slice it. I mean, maybe I'll be a 90-year-old, but, um, you know, I, I, I think it's, I think it's interesting because it, it really creates that perspective of appreciating what you've had and all the moments that you've had, like you said, and all the little things and the people you get to do it with and You know, if you want to have more enjoyment, honestly, do less things, have less things because things just require you to maintain them, to move them, to pick 'em up, to put 'em down, to clean 'em. It's out. It doesn't work. You know, I mean, between ice makers and refrigerators in our house, like we've got 9. And half of them are out. And, you know, the wife says, hey, we need to get that fixed. And I'm like, why? Why do we need— it's, it's just over there, you know, not burning electricity now, and we have ice over here. So, you know, at the end of the day, and then it forces you to ask, why do you even need all that stuff? You know, it's like, uh, you can really do, do less, and then, then you wouldn't have to worry about those things. I don't know, very— we went very introspective here. Interesting, uh, talking about about your early experience with the baseball cards. What was your earliest entrepreneurial experience?

I mean, I, I started very young, uh, and I was, I was crazy with it. I, one of the earliest ones I remember, probably 6 or 7. Can't, can't say that, the kids go like, like that every time I say 6 or 7.

Yeah, right. Uh, I hid it under the table.

That's good. My parents had this change bowl full of whatever change they would get from the day, and they had built this change bowl up. I remember charging kids, it was probably a buck or two. I said, you can come into the backyard and their bedroom was over the second floor. And I threw all the change into the backyard and let them for a buck or two find as much as they could. That was like early on, like me saying, all right, how can I make money doing this? But I mean, I was, I was a carny kid, meaning I ran my own carnivals. Like I got all these little fish bowls and I got little goldfish so that you could pay a dollar and get into the cup. But it was always like trying, for whatever reason in me, money was something that I wanted, probably because I didn't have it. Loved the, loved collecting sports cards, didn't have a lot of money, so I was banking on whatever I would get out of the packs. Trying to find things. I started an autograph business when I was in high school where I did— got to do a private signing with Kerry Wood and then found myself— it was me, one other guy, and Sammy Sosa's brother, and Sammy Sosa's in a room having Sosa sign a ton of stuff when I'm 17 years old. But I was— it was like combining my passions with how do I make money and the perception that money would give me more, which again, it does, like it can impact you, but the more money you make, the more pressure you have, and then you pressure yourself more than anything. So like, I think for, take the ice maker. So it's funny that you say that. We had the same thing with our house. Like two of them are out. I was like, we have an ice maker. I could go inside and get the ice. But it was like, if I put myself in the shoes of someone that doesn't have the ice maker, they want the ice maker. And then when they get there, then they, they're like, okay, now I know what it feels like to have the pain of having to have all these ice makers out. And so then it changes your perception. But if you've never been there, right, then you want it. And then the next ingredient is, are you willing to put in the hustle? Because you and I had to hustle to get what we got. Yeah. A lot of people aren't. They don't— they want it. They just don't want to put the work in to get it. Yeah.

Where'd you grow up?

Oak Park, Illinois.

Are you serious? That's where I was born.

Really? Yeah. At Oak Park Hospital?

Probably. I, I don't know. You know, I was, I was young.

I don't remember.

Um, it was, it was early. Uh, but no, I was born in Oak Park and I went to Schaumburg High.

Betty, Betty White was born in Oak Park. So was Bob Newhart. There's, uh, two, two people that you could say you were born at the same hospital.

Betty White was born at Oak Park Hospital. Yeah, well, you know, hey, the older I get, the closer she gets to being my hall pass.

That's great. That, that should be the opening of this beauty.

Look, uh, that's probably— now we'll leave it in. Let's leave it in.

I love it.

Uh, who was the other one you said?

Bob Newhart.

Bob Newhart. Great, man. Great company.

Oak Park was— Oak Park is a great little— my, my dad and mom still live there. It's a good little community.

Yeah.

For me, though, because for me, like, I hit 300 pounds in, in, in high school. So the bullying that came alongside that, it was, I want to get out of Oak Park. I don't want Oak Park to be my, my story. A lot of people stay there. They're lifers. I was like, I'm, I'm going to use this as my motivation to, to do different things. So it's a cute little town.

It is. And then my family was basically Southsiders, Westchester area. Yeah, right there. Well, hey, let's talk a little bit about franchising. What are you— what are you seeing now in terms of trends? I think, and again, we make our own luck. We started this Homefront Brands platform really the end of '21 into '22 and we're like, uh, I had my son with me, I had my brother with me and we're like, okay, we're, we've, we've, we, we built a property service brand, sold it in 2019. Then we got very broad into the industry, man. We did, we did pets and we, I got involved in fitness and health and wellness, retail-based locations, oil change, got involved in, uh, franchise sales organizations and then really came back and said fundamentally, We believe the most in property service and home service franchising just because the low entry cost, the scalability without additional locations, uh, the, the supply demand curve is in our favor. Uh, less people are doing it. It's expensive to get things done in your home. There's gonna be 150 million more people in this country by 2050. Uh, they're gonna constantly be building homes. Some years will be slower than others, but homes, businesses, retail, and everything has to be repaired. So like we, we believe that property and home services are among the most durable. There's no obsolescence, right? So I'm like, okay, we'll operate again. We, we, we jump back into it. And, and I think that now looking at AI, like you mentioned, we don't know really what's going to happen with unemployment. But every single person has a nut to crack. I mean, they've got, they've got a lifestyle to maintain. They might have a family to take care of. Everybody has to do something. And the answer for a lot of people in situations like that is they get, they hustle, they get scrappy. And I think franchising is a great way that makes businesses accessible to people in a, in an immediate way. You get into, you, you sign today, you're, you're in business depending on what the business is relatively quickly. You have a game plan to follow. You got a playbook to follow. So what do you see or what are you seeing? Do you see anything in the numbers yet as it relates to AI, or is it kind of business as usual in the franchise industry so far?

So 2021, we started taking all the franchisees that we worked with from a PR standpoint, and we obviously have to learn their story, but we use it as an opportunity to start collecting data. And so there's a few interesting things. One is 6.4 months is how much time it takes from impression to inquiry, not to purchase, from I learned about franchising and now I'm going to fill out the form on your website. Back to 2021, that number hasn't moved an inch. The average is staying at 6.4 months, and that's for investments south of $500,000. When it's over $500,000, it's closer to a year. And so the insight there is if you and I go back to the day before we're in franchising and say, explain it, we can't. Yet every franchisor puts on their website, buy my franchise, and they never explain what franchising is.. And so the buyer has this like knee-jerk reaction. Even when they fill out the form, they'll say, well, wait a second, I got to understand what I'm buying. Along this pathway, the broker network did a tremendous job of inserting themselves and saying, I'll educate you on how to buy a franchise. Very similar to a real estate agent saying, let me show you how to look at, look at a house. What's, what's shifting right now with AI is The authority doesn't have to be a broker. It can be ChatGPT. And so now we're starting to see in the survey results, they're starting to say, I used AI to help me, help inform my decision to actually buy this franchise. So the next question logically is, well, what are you asking? And it's pros and cons, competitor brands. What should I be looking at? Here's what I'm trying to get to from an outcome standpoint. So it's basically all the questions that you would engage a broker with. To get there. If I'm looking at the disruptor, I think broker networks are going to have to— I think they're going to be completely necessary and they're valuable, but there's been a lack of transparency. And so the broker is usually positioned— you can see all the Facebook ads. They say, I'll coach you for free. Technically, I guess. But your check for this franchise fee goes from Z to Zor to broker. And so the brokers don't know how to market themselves and say, I'm actually an authority on franchise. I've been doing this for a long time. I do get paid. And it basically comes from your franchise fee. It's a percentage, just like buying a house. But nobody wants to disclose that. And so AI is going to create more exposure to this, especially the more that it's being talked about. And so the brokers that transform are still going to be important because the broker that uses AI and says, hey, I, You still need someone to give you like the insights. I'm not going to be able to talk about the financials that's going to come out, out in item 19 or talking to other franchisees. But I can guide you on how to actually use AI to search for the brand. And so because it's appearing in the survey results, because I know that the brokers are going to have to transform, because transparency is going to be king in the world of how does AI and humans work together, it's going to start shifting. So all in all, you can see it in the survey results. It's coming into the discussion. Eventually buyers are going to use artificial intelligence to educate them on buying a franchise. How much money should I actually invest into a franchise? How do I scale my franchise? How do I ultimately create the wealth that I want for my family? And how do I exit this franchise? And it's, it's not in the distant future before we get there.

Yeah. Any particular categories that are seeing more interest?

So there's almost like two— there could be more than two, but I'm going to oversimplify this into like investors and job replacers. So job replacer is saying, how do I replace my income as step one? And maybe I can grow a little bit, but some of those, most of those will stall out. So anything that's a job replacement franchise, call it where you make less than gross from a— call it $500,000 as a benchmark. They're moving because there's plenty of people that have money. They can find ways to get the money and they're tired of working for the man. So they're leaping into the business, which you've seen this probably with all the brands that you're— you've been connected with. And then the investor brands, the more savvy ones where you're buying the dirt and you're building the building. The magic of the building is the building ends up paying off the dirt. And at the end you have, you have two businesses. You have the, you have the dirt and you have the franchise. And if you sell the franchise, now you still own the dirt and you built wealth for your family. And so the wealth creators are, are leveraging kind of the twofold approach. They're not looking at item 19 and, as a singular point of reference on what is the value of actually building out this franchise or looking at the value of the dirt as well. And so I think like the bookends are getting farther and farther away. And because most people want to build that go into franchising now, the way that they're being qualified is less on go buy the rights to 50 units, but buy 2 or 3. Get those open, make sure that it hits your expectations and continue to grow. And so that's where the savvy investor and the, the entry-level one is getting a little bit smarter in the way that they're purchasing.

What are some of the things that you see, what you consider to be good franchisors doing now to use some of this technology to better help support franchisees?

So the best franchisors that exist are the ones that understand that their return is on royalty. It's not on franchise fee. And so many CEOs in franchising look at that franchise fee as the return on investment for how you sign a franchise. But when you start looking at the deal value and I like looking at 3 years royalty, what— how much royalty is going to come into the system over the first 3 years? That's not— that's discounting scale or actually hitting the term of the agreement. But it gives you a benchmark for how much you want to invest into actually signing the franchisee. It changes your approach on how you're actually bringing them in. So step one is the franchisors that are really motivated by royalty and the success of their franchisees end up driving successful franchisees who scale because they're making money. From an AI standpoint, the franchisors that are looking at how do we leverage data across the system— and I'm going to oversimplify this— a great example is Two Men and a Truck years ago. Love this about them. They put all of the P&Ls for all of their franchisees onto the intranet site. Now, through artificial intelligence, I could go on to their intranet site and ask questions like, how am I performing against average? What do I need to do with my labor to tighten it up if I want to be at the top? And so now, because of the depth of the data, they're showing franchisees on how to actually be a business person. Most franchisors miss the onboarding and they assume like you're a business owner, but we're asking a franchisee who did not become the franchisor to be an expert in supply chain and employment and labor relations and customer relations and build out and HR. And the list goes on. And so a franchisor that says, all right, here's where your gaps are, let's actually equip our business consultants with the tools to almost help you build EOS or traction as a franchisee so that we're really designed on helping you reach your goals and teaching you about return on investment, the cost of acquisition on a customer, and what's the lifetime value. Now they're using tools that even if you don't have that in your toolkit as an FBC, the franchisor is teaching the FBC on how to actually support the franchisee. So supporting Driving up royalties, which drives revenue for the franchisees. Those are the franchisors that are going to the top.

Marketing has always been collaborative and different brands slice it differently as to who does what. Is the franchisor now with technology able to take on more of the responsibility for driving leads? And is it dangerous? Is it, is it best practice? What are you seeing in terms of how marketing work is being allocated between franchisors and franchisees and agencies?

Yeah, I'll give, I'll give two quick, quick stories. One is I was still Two Men and a Truck and I, we have a conference called FranCamp and their president was there. I told, I told this story. I will never forget this. I'm in the crowd at their conference, three top three 3 franchisees are on stage and number 3 went from like number 50 to number 3 in 1 year. And they said, what did you do? He said, I spent $0.10 of every dollar on marketing. And the franchisee— there's a franchisee next to me and he elbows me in the side. He goes, that guy's an idiot. I was like, he's on stage, bro. He's the one that did this. Like, can you not hear it? And so that's one. Two, Mosquito Joe, very early on, which I thought was a great moment for them, is they took that insight that franchisees It's not that they don't want to spend on marketing. They don't have a playbook. So you take that out of their hands and you do it for them. And so they actually did like the direct mail for their franchisees and they enforced that you're going to put X number of dollars in. It was disclosed upfront and it was, it was a predetermined agreement. Well, their sales actually worked, which allowed them to scale, which allowed them to build up a franchise or an exit to Neighborly. And so I say those two things because the common denominator is franchisees don't know how to be marketing experts, even though they probably tell you that they are. And so if the franchisor, the more that the franchisor can offset for the franchisees as turnkey, the better they have, the better chance they have at winning. Where it goes awry is if the franchisor doesn't stay in tune and really dialed into the cost of user acquisition, the potential return from that, that spend so that they can articulate it. And so the next biggest miss that exists in franchising is item 7, most brands say, here's your grand opening. Like, well, why does it say $10,000? They're like, I don't know, everybody else has $10,000. No, we should actually figure out the equation to profitability. And so when you engineer item 7 to actually be the business unit for how do you drive them to get to break even so they're not burning cash anymore, now all of a sudden you've done the right thing at the front ends so that when you go put in the marketing, it all makes sense. And so my advice to franchisors— I've been, I've been pushing this down really hard when I'm evaluating the business. I say take 10% of the total investment. That should be your grand opening marketing. Redefine grand opening marketing as a first-year spend. Therefore, you have enough dollars to get out of the gate. You're not having this contentious discussion if sales are not pacing at the way that they need to. You're accessing that capital and it's operating capital. It's not, it's not cash out of pocket off the front. And so that's how you get to good business. So All in all, I think franchisors that actually build up the system to manage the marketing on behalf of the franchisee are the ones that have a better shot at winning, which in turn, it's gonna drive up gross revenue, which in turn is gonna drop more dollars in royalty, which in turn is gonna make the franchisor actually more, uh, sound for supporting additional franchisees.

Well said, Nick. You wrote a book, Sticks and Stones. It was kind of a personal book on overcoming, overcoming things. Why'd you write it? Who'd you write it for?

I think everybody that finds success has some sort of painful moment in their past that maybe they didn't recognize the turn, but when it turns into fuel instead of pain, it can make tremendous things happen. It's the breakthrough, the brick wall for an entrepreneur. But like Jordan getting cut from his high school team, if you really looked at that as a case study of what happened and from Michael Jordan's standpoint, from there on out, he was not going to be beat from there. He actually probably needed that to become arguably the greatest athlete of all time. Tom Brady being last pick. And then you go into like creatives, like Einstein being said that he's dumb. Disney was said that he's not creative. And so if they all could go back to that moment and embrace it and say, all right, well, that's it. And I use that as fuel and I continue to use it as fuel. Then it allows you to break through the brick wall. So it's written for anybody that wants to accomplish something and trying to give them permission to access these dark moments. And so when I speak on stage to franchisees, the two messages are stop blaming the franchisor. You are in control of the outcome. So it's your fault. And secondly, when you take accountability for yourself and you can go access something because something triggered you, it could be turbulence in your job. Something triggered you to go into business for yourself. Access that as a fuel point to stop making excuses and go do it. So I'm the one that put the food in my mouth to make myself £300. Nobody else did. But then I had to take accountability and use that as fuel and say, all right, I'm never going to go there again. And this is going to be the motivator for the rest of my life. And so it was written for anybody that's trying to find that energy, specifically a franchisee, to make great things happen and give them permission that, you know, a tough moment in life, it could have been anything. It's okay to use that as fuel for where you're going.

Do you leverage your personal story from high school in the book?

Yeah, yeah, it's not just that. I mean, other agency that I worked at, being told no or that it wouldn't work. I mean, that was motivation. So yeah, it happened in business multiple times. It hap— as a writer, I was told I wasn't a good enough writer, so I had to go do journalism camp. Then I went on to go work at Rolling Stone magazine. Like, it— I've had all these fuel moments and it still happens today. But yeah, that personal story is, is deep and it still cuts me. It, it still cut, but I look at it and say, all right, You, you learn from it. Keep, keep growing, keep fighting, keep chasing what equals happiness.

Fran Camp, are you still doing that event and when's the next one?

If so, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been awesome. We just had one in June and really the, the idea behind June, we had Dan Dizio from Philly Pretzel Talk. He, he almost died during COVID Was very vulnerable with the story. Randy Shaka from Two Men and a Truck started as a guy that was just packing the boxes on the back of the truck and now is president. And so it's very similar to what Sticks and Stones is to find that like tough moment to put everything in perspective, to build out your roadmap and get vulnerable with your story. So that was— that just happened a few weeks ago. We have Miami in December. Which is Unicorn Brands Secrets Unlocked. And hopefully I'll be announcing a very well-known athlete as our speaker because he had to break through some walls to become a unicorn athlete. And so we like— we did one in Chicago last year. We had Thomas Ian Nicholas, who was in American Pie and Rookie of the Year. We actually built out the— our whole curriculum was around a movie script. That most franchisors don't write their movie script. They're like, hey, we're, we're the start of the movie, but they don't think about the climax. They don't think about the sequel. And so we use American Pie as an example. So we talk through like, how did American Pie become a billion-dollar franchise? And it was because the script got nailed. And even what you're doing with Homefront, nailed the script, and now you're just playing it into different business categories over and over and over again. So long-winded to say, we always have a a good, I think, an interesting theme. We had about 100 franchisors there. It's been, it's been good to build disruptive conference, non-conference that isn't built on PowerPoint. It's more built on like true real connection building.

Yeah. Who attends?

Every, every franchisor that has a dream of growing, but big, big and small.

Okay. It's for franchisors. No, not primary, not for franchisees.

We do have franchisees. We had a franchisee panel on this last one. Yeah, franchisees will come. The reality is like, I don't think the industry's done a good job of cultivating a franchisee network. Multi-unit is the closest that exists, but nobody's really done it outside of the Franchisors Conference.

No, I agree with that. I agree with that wholeheartedly.

There's—

it's something I've been thinking about. Yeah, I have a, I have a small mastermind. It's kind of on the down low. It's called Fran Mastery. Uh, I think we, I think we got our 10th brand in or something like that now. So, um, but, uh, I've been thinking about that, you know, franchisees, I don't, I don't know where they go to collaborate.

They, they, they don't have anywhere. Uh, and it, you know, pro— probably partly because they're so entrapped in managing their business, but I agree there. And we have a mutual client, Wild Bill's, who raved about— Yeah, spent some time with you. So, I mean, these little things make a huge difference for the community. And, you know, you're obviously giving back too.

So, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I— somebody said something to me and it stuck is that we're very interested in expanding the reach and relevance of the franchise sector and the professionalism of it as well. So, uh, just look, this is the industry that, that feeds us all. It provides goods and services to consumers in a, in a great way, and it's important. And like, if you're going to do anything well, you got to train, you got to learn, you got to, you got to understand what— there's no reason to repeat mistakes that others have made before you. So yeah, I'm very interested, uh, in working with people that are interested in doing good franchising. And it's just something that I like. It's easy, right? And it's something that I'm passionate about. So, yeah, I didn't know Wild Bill's worked with you. Michael Quilty.

Yeah. Yeah. And Russo, they're— Yeah, it's a very fascinating business story and what they're, what they're doing and what they're approaching. And, you know, my advice to people like them is just keep, keep your guard up in this industry, find good people and don't, don't divert from what you do. I've said this to Kevin Wilson with Buzz Franchise Brands. So, you know, the magic of Mosquito Joe was it was that you were the unfranchised franchise, like making, making your franchisees hire you for marketing was the magic. I go, If any franchisor wants to win, go back to before you were a franchisor and don't become a franchisor again. Like, be a franchisor that doesn't think like a franchisor. That's the magic. And I think Wild Bill's is taking that approach really well right now.

Yeah. And they have a beautiful mission with veterans.

Yeah, it's wonderful.

Military people. Yeah. Hey, and you should go to franmastery.com and check out our code of conduct. You get a kick out of it.

Okay. I'll go look.

Yeah. I love it. Um, well, speaking of that, uh, Nick, uh, I've got a curveball and a fastball for you to kind of wrap up our hour here. Uh, if you're interested in playing, I know that you're a, a frustrated, uh, athlete. So I figured you do, uh, bat right-handed or left-handed? Okay. Well, this is gonna, this is gonna be, uh, tailing away from you then. But before we do that, uh, tell people how to get in touch with you.

You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm the only Nick Powells in the world. So Google will probably correct you if you try spelling it wrong, but it's, uh, P-O-W-I-L-L-S and you'll go, you can find me online. I'm all over the place.

What's the origin of that last name? It's an interesting spelling.

Uh, it was Pavelitis and a great-great-grandfather thought it sounded like a disease. So he changed it and that's, uh, as boring as that is, it's almost marketing. Um, that's, that's the origin.

Well, the rumor is that there was a Dudansky floating around back a couple generations ago and they, they wanted to Americanize it. So not a lot of, not a lot of Dudans out there either.

No, there's not.

No, I've never, I've never met another one or, or another Powells.

All right.

Here's the curveball. Yeah. Gun to your head. If you have to start a business in the next 30 days and it can't be something that you're currently doing. What would that business be? Where do you see the opportunity in the marketplace?

All right. Well, it goes back to 1989 Upper Deck, but there's a baseball card shop in Atlanta called Cards HQ. Just took a giant private equity backing. He basically has a Whatnot channel. He's got all his rippers in the store. It's a big unit. Marketing guy. He's done awesome stuff. Gun to the head, I'm going to start the next wave of a baseball card shop and getting into this marketplace. And it's exploding. Interest is back. Nostalgia is there. I would go into the sports card slash Pokémon, which I don't know much about, but I'll go back. I'll go into that industry tomorrow.

So is it all sports? Not just because we talk baseball cards, but there's football cards, basketball cards.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All sports. Yeah.

Yeah. Awesome.

Great.

All right. Last question. If you had one sentence to make an impact in someone's life, what would that be?

Life is short and embrace it. I think that's, uh, that's it. I think too, too many people don't, uh, don't look at the shortness of life. And I think, I think that's all the fights in politics and religion. Like everything's taken too seriously and too personally. And if we all know we're gonna end up in the same place, then we're all, all the same. Right? And so be, be kind. You don't have to be, you don't have to be a dick. That maybe that's the line. Maybe you don't have to be a dick is the, is the sentence.

That works.

Or, or I would've said Betty White is my hall pass. Like that, that's the true line.

Hey, I like a funny lady.

That's good. She's dead.

Wow.

She's dead.

Yeah, well, no comment. Didn't have to go there.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. Sorry.

All right. Well, hey, this is Chicago humor wrapping up here on The Unemployable Podcast. But hey, Nick, thanks for being on, man.

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Jeff. It's great to see you.

Yeah, always. I'm Jeff Dudan here with the incredible Nick Powells on The Unemployable Podcast. Thanks for listening.