Men, Mental Health & Meaning | Rick Walker on Healing, Identity & Legacy

August 28, 2025

In this powerful episode of On the HomeFront, Jeff Dudan sits down with Chris Collins, a record-setting GM turned leadership author and turnaround expert. They discuss the brutal truths of leadership, the emotional weight of entrepreneurship, and why building systems beats cutting costs. If you're interested in entrepreneurship in home services, franchise leadership, or the psychology of scaling a business, this episode is a must-listen.


What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • How internal locus of control impacts success in business and life
  • Why most companies fail to reach their full potential
  • The importance of systems over people in turnaround situations
  • Why leadership begins with self-esteem and personal responsibility
  • How parenting parallels entrepreneurial leadership and culture-building

Featured Quotes


"The opportunity of a lifetime comes once a day."
—Chris Collins


"You can't cut a business into profitability. You grow it through experience and value."
—Chris Collins


"Truth is the through-line of leadership. It starts with owning your role."
—Jeff Dudan


Full Transcript


Jeff Dudan (00:00)

keep drinking my coffee and my Monster all at the same time.

 

Chris (00:04)

You're double fisting.

 

Jeff Dudan (00:06)

Yeah, I am double fisting, but in separate cups, which I'm not, you know, speed balling it.

 

All right, here we go. Welcome to the home front, everybody. I am Jeff Duden. If you grew up as a child of missionaries in Mexico, was a broke ass drummer in the Seattle grunge era of the 90s. If you got a job in a car dealership car wash to start your career in the automotive industry and rose up the ranks to be a record setting industry leading dealer GM.

 

and since rose to prominence as a fixer and turnaround guru for car dealerships. If you have published the most interesting two book set ever created called I Am Leader, your name can only be Chris Collins. Welcome, Chris.

 

Chris (00:58)

thank you. That's great intro.

 

Jeff Dudan (01:01)

All right, man. Well, it's

 

all yours. It's all yours, sir. Hey, thanks for being on, Chris. Really excited to have you on. I wasn't, I'm not in the automotive industry. I wasn't familiar with you before I bounced into you at the Genius Network a couple of weeks ago. I did notice, sir, your shoe game is intensely good.

 

Chris (01:24)

Yeah, I take that pretty seriously. But mostly it's Rick Owens. That's kind of my uniform. Are you familiar with Rick Owens? Yeah, so that's my shoe game in a nutshell. They take really good care of me over there, Rick.

 

Jeff Dudan (01:35)

Now.

 

Is that a retail store? that a designer?

 

Chris (01:46)

Yeah, he's a designer, but less known and kind of more boutique-y, but yeah.

 

Jeff Dudan (01:52)

Yeah, so one pair, I think had about 50 eyelets on it and it had multiple mounds of shoelaces across. It was probably the most interesting shoes I saw. And I think the next day was a pair of boots.

 

Chris (02:04)

Yeah, you gotta get up really early to tie those. It's like people talk about their morning routine. If I'm wearing those that day, I have to get up pretty early.

 

Jeff Dudan (02:07)

You

 

Yeah, those will injure your back. Putting those on. All right, well, look Chris, you got an incredible story and man, some people when they speak, it's just, everything that you said when you spoke of the Genius Network was kind of a mouthful of truth and it really resonated. Can you share just a little bit with the audience about your background and then how that led into

 

being a leading turnaround expert in the automotive industry.

 

Chris Collins’ Unconventional Origin Story


Chris (02:51)

Yeah, I just, think like a lot of people probably listening to this, I'm, you know, self-made. grew up in a situation where I wanted to do, I wanted to be different than the situation I was born into. And I've been running from it ever since. And, you know, part of it creates like, a little bit of a workaholic syndrome where.

 

You're always kind of running from this, this thing, is, you know, poor models and just a lot of, compliance and followership. And you just, you know, just the status quo basically, and a lot of externalization to God and government and luck and fate and that sort of thing. And it's all very.

 

depressing really is what happens is you...

 

I just, you know, I have a lot of acquaintances from school or even family that are just in this vicious loop that you only escape through being your own boss and creating your own destiny, basically.

 

Breaking the Cycle: The Add/Subtract Tool and Dirty Eyes


Jeff Dudan (04:15)

One of the exercises that I've started doing and I think so much of leadership comes out of self-correction. Until you make a bunch of mistakes and then you think about it and then you try something and then those that build education businesses are in a position to lead or to influence, we build tools.

 

And I built a tool, a simple tool and on one side of the page it says subtract on the other side it says add. you you can't until you can create some space for something new to grow up into, like it's not gonna happen. So when you talk about people being in a vicious cycle, it's because their plate is running over with all kinds of stuff that's not helping getting them the direction where they wanna go. And you know, like there's

 

There's a term in football called having dirty eyes. And if you got dirty eyes, that means you're looking at the wrong thing. If you're reading the wrong keys and your eyes are in the wrong place, put your feet in the wrong place, you're out of position, you don't make the play.

 

And dirty eyes can be anything from scrolling too much social media to being around the wrong people to, you know, different types of, you know, you know, maybe drugs or alcohol at a level that's, you know, distracting you stealing your time. You know, you can get dirty eyes in a lot of different ways. But man, sometimes, like as leaders, it's our job to calm the swirl and you've got to give space for the universe to organize itself.

 

Chris (05:50)

Yeah, that's well said.

 

We're just very mimetic as humans, right? Like we kind of learn from the examples that we see or from the information that we intake. And so I think, you know, part of being an entrepreneur, being a leader is being outside of that and being the one that is creating their own path in a sense.

 

Jeff Dudan (05:58)

Mm.

 

Contradictions in Leadership and Mimetic Behavior


Chris (06:23)

And I don't know, think from a very early age, I noticed that what the adults were saying and what they were doing were in conflict.

 

Like I could just see it like, you're, you're telling me to live this way, but you're miserable. Like it just didn't make sense. You know, and I, I have always kind of been able to do that when it comes to business too. It's like, if you go into a business to turn it around, what the people say in the business that's underperforming and often losing money.

 

is really different than what the truth is. And most of the time, the conversation is around the symptoms, but nobody steps back and looks at it globally or looks at the overall cause in a sense. And when you're, when you're just treating symptoms and you're reactionary, that becomes automatic pilot. becomes habit. And that's the world you, you know, you end up living in, in a, in a sense. And so

 

From a very early age, always kind of just saw the conflict and the contradiction in what people said versus what was actually happening didn't line up, you know.

 

Truth, Systems Thinking, and Root Cause Analysis


Jeff Dudan (07:44)

Are these people, they in business or when you were growing up, do you think these people were lying to you or were they lying to themselves?

 

Chris (07:53)

I think that it sneaks up on us. I don't think, I don't think that it's, it's conscious. It's unconscious. You know, know, a lot of times people say the thing that's polite or the thing that they think they should say versus what the actual truth is. Right.

 

Jeff Dudan (08:15)

You know, in business, getting to the root cause of the problem is, it's all, it's ensconced in red tape, like people protecting their jobs, people protecting each other, sacred cows. We invested all this money in a project, so we've got to continue, when it should be killed, especially now with technology, man.

 

You could be $3 million into a technology build, and now you can do it for $300,000 with AI. And it's like, know, tough, right? You want to hang on to what you had going on to? Yeah, I mean, it's... And we're pattern creators. it's, you know, our will is an exhaustible resource. We only have so much battery. It's harder to make a change than it is to just show up and do the same stupid thing every single day. That's why television's so great, because you can just stare at it.

 

and you really don't have to do much and you actually you're entertained. You're sedentary. Yeah, we're screwed up. We're a mess. yet like, but people that grew up without a net, know, I didn't didn't grow up with a lot of means, you know, as a failed student, I failed and, know.

 

I ended up did go to college, but failed out of the first one, dropped back to a junior college, ended up getting a football scholarship out to one. So I kind of got out. If it wasn't for that scholarship, man, if I couldn't catch a football, that would have been it. That would have been a different path for me. But one thing I do know is that I can go to zero. And for me, I'm just getting back to where I started.

 

So sometimes when people start with a lot, their ability to make progress is harder because they have a higher starting point. When you start with nothing, then everything is a bonus.

 

Rethinking Leadership: Management vs. Creation


Chris (10:18)

Yeah. So good. It's good. You know, so interestingly for me, I think everything I needed to learn in school, I was a terrible student. Had a hard time sitting still. Like, well, you know, I think eighth grade was eighth or ninth grade was probably where I could have ended and been okay. Thank God I didn't try to go to college and keep trying to do what everybody was telling me I should do. but I got to work. Look, I just started working.

 

Jeff Dudan (10:21)

Yeah.

 

Chris (10:47)

and I learned more by working in just, you know, kind of to the, to the point of the contradiction of what I noticed in adults when I was a kid, what they would say versus what reality was and how miserable they really were in businesses that are underperforming and what people say versus the truth or the reality is that they're, you know, they're not performing and that

 

the commonality in both of those, which is fascinating to me, is that in most situations or most interactions that you have, full potential is never on the table. Like we're so busy with everything else that nobody talks about full potential at all. you know, the book that I made, I Am Leader, it took me a little over four years

 

Jeff Dudan (11:22)

Mmm.

 

Chris (11:46)

to do it. And I was doing that out of frustration in the sense that I would go to leadership training and I would buy leadership books. And it all seemed like management training to me. And it made people feel good, right? Like there's a lot of feel good books, like leaders eat last and like, you know, these kind of cliche dog whistles, but they don't change anybody. And it really wasn't addressing leaders. Like leadership is a big deal.

 

It is held in high self-esteem and it's not easy to obtain and takes a complicated, you know, bunch of characteristics that you have to be good at in order to be a leader. have to be charismatic, right? You have to know how to speak. You have to know how to read a financial statement. You have to understand sociology. You have to understand design and architecture and

 

you know, design of systems, design of customer experiences. There's so many, you know, aspects of human behavior and systems that you have to understand in order to be a leader. Leaders are really one in a million. Everything that we're talking about most of the time that gets, you know, titled as leadership is management. Most people are managing something that somebody else creates.

 

Jeff Dudan (13:08)

Yeah.

 

Chris (13:12)

If you own a franchise, you're managing a system that somebody else created. I have this client on the East Coast, Mr. Mills, and we were talking about this the other day and he said, it's the difference between the builder and the landscaper in a sense where if you build something, you create something, you're the builder, you're the creator.

 

But most people are landscaping the yard that somebody else already designed. They're just mowing the lawn, right? And that gap in having a real conversation about what leadership really is, it always felt like everybody was trying to be politically correct, but not talking about what it really is. And so when I was writing the book, it became very clear to me that it was two books.

 

Jeff Dudan (13:46)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Chris (14:10)

that there had to be the I am the part about the individual. And then there had to be the leadership part, but we couldn't talk about leadership until we address some fundamental things about us as humans and, you know, dealt with some stuff way before leadership is even, you know, a possibility really. And so, you know, it's that same.

 

Same thing. the funny thing is, that most of the people that have come to the workshop that I've done here, so I've done about seven of them. And it's like a two day kind of immersive thing. I'm not doing it anymore because I really, to do it, I need to break it up because it's too much for people in two days. But when I was doing it, the thing that happened invariably,

 

is that everybody related it to parenting. So people would leave the first day and they had homework, they'd come back the next morning and we would discuss like what they'd experienced the day before. And everybody was like, I went home and I called my kid. I want, I'm buying this book for my kid. want, you know, and the thing that they would do is they would relate it to parenting, not business, which was a surprise to me. But.

 

Jeff Dudan (15:11)

Hmm.

 

Parenting as the Ultimate Leadership Test


Chris (15:36)

I would also say that parenting maybe is the hardest leadership role there is. And most, most people are passive or even indifferent in parenting. Like, for example, I was born into a situation where my father left when I was two months old. So, I mean, it wasn't like two people were sitting around going, Hey, we're going to have this kid and we're going to raise him to be a better version of us. Like,

 

Or, you know, there was no intentionality whatsoever in my existence except for that I happened. And now I was around and I had to be dealt with, but there was no intentionality. so that, you know, true leadership in parenting is, you know, having a plan and being intentional and working, you know, two parents working together to create a human being that outperforms what they did. Right. Like you want your kids to be better than

 

You want them to be more accomplished. That requires intentionality. It doesn't happen by accident. you know, I had, before I was 13, I'd had one dad that left in two months and a stepdad that left when I was 13. And, you know, I was, it wasn't intentional. My, my, uh,

 

design of how I think and how, you know, I was to behave or whatever, mostly came from me observing, not from anybody sitting me down and like, hey, we're gonna raise you to be something, you know, incredible. And I would contend, because people always have a hard time when I talk about this, like, because people will say, well, well, you turned out really good and you're successful. this, you know, so why talk, you know, why?

 

have these regrets or whatever. And I'm like, it's not a regret, it's an observation. But I would contend that I might be a high school coach, way more fulfilled than being this successful workaholic, you know, that's running from something, if that makes sense. Like, I don't know, because we have no way of A-B testing our lives that way. But it is, it is a, you know, it's a fascinating kind of thing to explore and think about.

 

in that way, but people relate the book more to parenting or to parenting first and then business second. And that's been a interesting outcome of this.

 

Jeff Dudan (18:13)

So I do shorts and when I came back from the conference that we were at, I actually did a short and relating to how parenting was similar to building a business, leading a company was similar to leading a family, because I got that. It's amazing that you mentioned that, but I got this little bit that 1 % of people create all the value. They're the builders.

 

They create the vision, they create the game that everybody else plays. The next 19 % of people manage that value and then the last 80 % of people consume it. you know, it's, I mean, so like, what is that, if, so if we want to change our state and where we are in life and we want to be a builder, then like, it's a high bar. There's a lot of things you gotta let go. There's a lot of things you gotta be willing to do. If you want to stand on nothing and create something, which is what am I?

 

favorite definitions of a leader. You can stand on nothing and create something. Man, was lot inside of that. I did notice in your book where you did, there was one page where you were talking about where people, about parenting and that parents are saying it was such a sacrifice to raise their kids.

 

And I also noticed you had one, there was one page where you said leadership and management is same as Kanye West and abstinence, right?

 

Chris (19:45)

Yeah,

 

it's funny. So what would you that meeting we were at, what would you say that average annual income is in that room?

 

Jeff Dudan (19:56)

over a million. It's yeah, millions, millions. Millions. I'm just think. Yeah.

 

Chris (20:06)

Yeah, I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna guess five, but it's a guess,

 

right? I don't know, but it's, there's some people in there doing some pretty big numbers. And the thing that I thought was interesting is throughout the day, what, you know, way before I went up there and was talking, people were somehow parenting came up and people were talking about raising their kids and should we pay for my kids' college and don't pay for their college and all this superficial stuff that was so odd, you know, odd to me.

 

I was dying to talk, but I waited until, you know, I w I was up there. And I mean, if you, if you want to raise kids that are going to be successful, the number one thing that you want them to have that protects them from, you know, being followers from making decisions based on pressure, from being depressed, whatever, you know, all the negative things that you wouldn't want your kid to have.

 

is you want them to have high self-esteem. High self-esteem protects them from everything. if you have a general, you know, there's that quote and we talked about it at the meeting where there's this book, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, and he says in there that self-esteem is the immune system of consciousness. Just think about that for a second. Self-esteem is the immune system of consciousness. Consciousness is with us.

 

Jeff Dudan (21:08)

Yes.

 

The Power of Self-Esteem in Leadership and Parenting


Chris (21:34)

every second we're experiencing it live, you know, and so how we feel what our self-esteem is, what are, you know, how we're going to interact with our consciousness, how we experience things. If we, if we have low self-esteem, we're always going to think things are an attack or we're not good enough or we don't believe, you know, there's all these negative outcomes that come from that.

 

It's the, you know, it's exactly the same thing with leadership is if you want to raise a strong leader, you want to develop leaders. Like I believe fundamentally that I have a leadership factory and I create leaders and anybody can be a leader if they want to put in the work. But the first thing that I want in anybody that I, that I'm trying to turn into a leader is I want to raise their self-esteem because you know, the

 

The people that have authority or have power that have low self-esteem are the ones that do bad things. They're the ones that are corrupt. They're the ones that, you know, narcissists or psychopaths. Like, it's, you know, the tools, like the tools in the book, and I make the point in the beginning of the leadership book that Hitler was a leader. Like the same roadmap that Hitler used to become powerful.

 

is the same one that is used by Mandela. Like a lot of people are using the same, you know, the same architecture, but it's the intentionality and who you are that is going to, you know, determine whether you use these tools for good or for evil in a sense. And so just like with kids, you know, the first place to start with leadership is self-esteem.

 

You gotta have healthy self-esteem and you know, one thing that drives me crazy and this happens all the time. I do this series, I don't know if you saw it on the channel, but it's called Books That Changed My Life.

 

Jeff Dudan (23:41)

Okay.

 

Chris (23:42)

So people come in with a book that changed their life and we talk about it and invariably a lot of those books are self-help. And in a lot of those books, they'll say and people will be talking about the book and then they'll say, then I'm really working on chapter six, I'm really trying to love myself. that's a self-help thing that is continuity if you've ever seen it because...

 

If you, if you're trying to love yourself, then you're to have to break up with yourself and get back together. Like it doesn't even, that doesn't even make sense. Right. And my point. Yeah. My point is always like, Hey, why don't you just like yourself? We're not, none of us are so great. Like we're just not so great. Why don't you like yourself? And then you'll be more willing to deal with the parts of you that need to be addressed.

 

Jeff Dudan (24:16)

What does that makeup look like?

 

Chris (24:36)

And when I say that, when I say, you know, the thing that I've found is don't try to love yourself. Just learn to like yourself. People literally, their posture is like, and they'll be like, I'm still glad you told me that. yeah, like trying to love yourself. it's, you know, and it's all, all people are more susceptible to that sort of nonsense when they have low self-esteem and they're trying to find meaning in belonging. Right.

 

Jeff Dudan (25:04)

Right.

 

Looking through line of everything that we've talked about this far is truth. You know, can you truly be extra perspective? If there was a camera in the corner of the room that was watching you and you were objectively observing yourself, how accurate is your self image? How true to yourself can you be? How much grace can you give yourself? And like you talk about like people in companies, parents, you talk about parenting like

 

I've got some simple I got three kids. They're all doing just fine. I didn't grow up in a kind of a nuclear household. you know, I had, you know, so part of my parenting with my kids was I think, some like neglect like, first of all, I never lied to them. I never sugar coated anything if they didn't make the team you didn't make the team cat didn't run away. I ran it over.

 

dogs, you know, grandma, whatever, you know, like you just tell them the truth because if you ever lose the locker room with kids and they think you will lie to them to protect them, they think, well, I'm not worthy of being told the truth. They know when you're lying, right? They they're smart. They're just less experienced. They're just as smart as you are.

 

They just don't have the perspective and they don't have the experience. Then the other thing is just don't rescue them. I mean, how many of us grew up, you know, without, under resourced, under managed, with very little intention, there's no net underneath us. So if we fall off, we're gonna hit the ground. And then what do we learn? We learn to bounce. We learn to figure things out. We learn to...

 

Well, and then another thing you talked about in the book and mentioned was the, where is your locus of control? When you talked about that, I could not unsee it. Everybody I talk to now, and I hear it in their language, I'm like, they've just blamed three other conditions or people for what's happening to them. And it makes it hard to navigate. It's because in...

 

And the concept is external locus of control. Who's responsible? Who's in control of what happens to you? Is it external factors? Or at the end of it, are those just circumstances and you're really in control about what you do about it?

 

Locus of Control: Who’s Really in Charge of Your Life?


Chris (27:26)

Yeah. So yeah, for anybody who doesn't understand locus of control, it's basically where do you plant your flag of control for your life? Is it external? Is it religion? Is it all in God's hands? Is it fate? Is it luck? Is it the government? Is it, you know, I had terrible parents, so the reason why I'm all messed up is my parents or...

 

You know, what, what are you externalizing control to? And there's a very small, it's 10 % of the population had kind of made the decision that the control is inside of them. Like they're planning their flag and they're saying, it's me. Like it comes down to my work ethic, my ability to learn and be flexible, my charisma, my, you know, ability to sell my ability to manage myself. Right. Like it's, you know,

 

A lot of people say too, well, I can't control my emotions. Like, can if you want to, but it's easy to say you can't. But if you want to be successful and you want to have some sort of belief in yourself and high self-esteem, you're going to have to look in the mirror and decide that you're the answer to all of your problems.

 

Because you know, the outcome, there's tons of studies on Locus of Control. There's thousands of studies. I have no idea why we don't teach this in school. Because if we taught this in like, I don't know, fifth, sixth grade, we would have highly productive, highly energized, patriotic kids. And we've known about this for a long time. We've known that the common denominator between people that are successful and happy and the people that are depressed,

 

low status, poor, miserable is locus of control. It's agency. But for some reason we keep this a secret, but it is the key to everything. And then it ends up that kids in high school, they've studied this over and over again. The kids in high school that have an internal locus of control end up being more successful. They end up being more fulfilled and the kids that don't are.

 

prone to anxiety, depression, all kinds of negative stuff and they're low status in a sense. And the other part of Locus of Control 2 is we're not just talking about work, we're talking about your personal life. There's people, and I have friends, that'll say, the reason why my kids are all messed up is because I worked so hard and I was never home.

 

It's your fault. Like you decided to work too hard and not be home. Like that was a decision. Whether you're conscious of it or not, you made that decision, right? And so, I have friends that struggle in their love life and they'll, I have one buddy, he's a complete Adonis. Like works out, eats nothing but probably...

 

chicken breast and embryos or something, I don't know, but he's an Adonis. And he believes that women are corrupt or gold diggers. He has all these negative connotations about women. And we live in Los Angeles and he says, there's no women here. And you're like, there's 18 million people here, nine of them are, nine million of them are women. Like, is it them or is it you?

 

It's, he has a belief system and it's, you know, the thing that doesn't happen is he doesn't look in the mirror and decide that he needs to change his approach or his beliefs. You know, he externalizes it to women or gold diggers or corrupt or whatever it is. And that's how most people are. There's areas of our lives that we externalize control.

 

In the areas where we're the most intentional, we will automatically develop an internal locus of control. So like for me, I didn't want to be poor. So I had an internal locus of control when it came to business, but I had an external locus of control when it had, when it came to other stuff, because that's just how I was raised. I was raised that God was the controller of everything and it was fate and your destiny was already laid out. And it ends up none of, you know, none of that is true. There's the.

 

The old joke about the guy who prays to God to win the lottery over and over again. Have you heard that one? So he prays, he gets his whole church to pray. They have prayer meetings. He does it for years. And then finally, God sends a message down to the pastor of the church. says, Hey, could you tell him to buy a lottery ticket to help me out? Like, how do I make him win the lottery if he never buys a ticket? Right? It's like, people think, well, Chris, you know, Chris is saying that God isn't real. It's like,

 

Jeff Dudan (32:16)

now.

 

Chris (32:40)

It's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you can't blame all your problems on God. Or fate or luck, you know?

 

Jeff Dudan (32:46)

Yeah, you have to take some sort of an action. Have you seen a correlation between people's locus of control, their success in life, and the size of their friend group?

 

Chris (33:12)

Yeah, but I would, I would maybe say that the friend thing is also followers. Like the thing that automatically happens is the person who has an internal locus of control usually ends up being the natural leader in the room. And so, yeah, they have friends, but they're the also the one that people count on that people look to because they're more in line with the truth. Right. and you can count on them.

 

Jeff Dudan (33:29)

Hmm. Okay.

 

Hmm.

 

Chris (33:40)

And they are who they say they are. They're more authentic. mean, people are attracted to authenticity. And when you start to own your own stuff, you become more authentic because the only way for you to improve is to work on yourself. And so it goes back to what I was saying about liking yourself is if, know, you're genuinely rooting for yourself and you're trying to get better and you're trying to improve, well, you're going to have to change some things. You're going to have to work on some things.

 

through that process, you just become more authentic and more genuine. And we're all attracted to people who are authentic and genuine.

 

Jeff Dudan (34:17)

Yeah, I would suggest that sometimes as you, when you get successful, lot of the interactions that you have start to be around business. And then a lot of those are either, some of those are vendor relationships, some are employee relationships, some are dependent, financially dependent relationships. And...

 

You know, it's, it's, and if you, if you, if you truly don't care that much about what other people think, meaning it doesn't, it's, it's not that you don't care. that you're not going to let it impact you and you're not going to let it change your actions. Then you're probably less likely to be caring about things at the golf club or the social events or these types of groups. don't know. maybe I'm internalizing that a little bit. but you know, I, just, I've developed a.

 

real impatience for solely social situations. just being, trying to go there and be palatable, maybe be somebody I'm a little bit not, maybe that's my kind of hangup or whatever, but I take full accountability. I catch myself, but I do think I have an internal locus of control. And I think sometimes if it is to be, it's up to me, so.

 

I'm very, maybe you get a little bit narcissistic, you get a little focused on yourself because you know that like that's where the work is. You know, if you don't spend any time blaming other people for things, the blame's going to you. And now it's like, well, then why did I just waste four hours doing this or why did I waste four hours doing that when I could have been making myself a little bit better? I don't know. Maybe there's nothing there, but I just, find this fascinating.

 

Chris (36:06)

That's really, that's,

 

it's interesting to me that that's how you feel because like, you know, you have a presence, right? So like when, when we were at that meeting, I noticed you, had a, you had a presence. And, I was, I was wondering when I was on stage, what you thought, because you, you, you kind of are like me, you have a poker face a little bit. And then you went out of your way to come and tell me.

 

And talk to me about, about it. And you were very complimentary and excited about getting the book and, know, which then, you know, made me feel great and made me feel like I belonged there in that room and, know, that sort of thing. So it's interesting that you feel that way in the sense, because you, you navigate it very well and you were, you know, you were very, welcoming in your.

 

in your actions and behavior for me, you know, that's the first meeting I'd been to since like 2018 or something. I don't know.

 

Jeff Dudan (37:15)

Well,

 

I will say I was genuinely interested and fascinated and you know, I was, mean what you talked about. Really.

 

Chris (37:21)

Yeah, but most people won't say anything. Like you went out

 

of your way to, know, which then validated me in a way, you know, which was, which made me feel like...

 

Jeff Dudan (37:29)

Hmm. I appreciate that. Yeah, they put the guy with put the

 

guy with the big head. Tell Joe not to put the guy with the huge head in the front row next time. Just staring at staring at the guest. Well, it was, you know, I

 

Chris (37:39)

It wasn't your head, it was your, it was your poker face.

 

Cause like I

 

got a couple, I got a couple of laughs, but you were, you were kind of like, I felt like you were still trying to figure out if you trusted me or liked me was the feeling I had. And so, you know, also like a compliment means more from somebody who isn't just laughing and following what everybody else is doing, right? Cause it means you're genuinely thinking about stuff and that way too. But you have a tremendous presence. Like you, have a...

 

Jeff Dudan (38:08)

Yeah.

 

Chris (38:16)

a very calming, nice presence in a room too. So maybe how you feel is different than how others are experiencing it a little bit.

 

Jeff Dudan (38:21)

Man, I appreciate that. Thank you.

 

Hmm, yeah, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. That's interesting. I appreciate that. Thank you for the awareness. Yeah. So speaking of awareness, you said a couple things about walking into a car dealership. So let's talk about truth. If you're walking into a car dealership, it's not working.

 

Right. You've seen the numbers, you know, they're bad. You know, they're last in the region or they're not hitting their rebate numbers or anything like that. You walk in, you start walking around. Everybody's smiling. Everybody's shaking your hand. I'm the sales manager. I'm this guy, that guy, right? What you know that you're there to fix it. What, what are, what's your approach? How do you enter? How do you wade into that pool? And what are some of the first things that you do and why?

 

Turning Around a Business Without Cutting to Profitability


Chris (39:26)

So there's probably two narratives going on in a sense, right? It's like, what the truth is, isn't verbalized, right? Because if I come into a situation and it could be a car dealership, it could be a bicycle shop, it could be a doctor's office, it could be a bunch of different things. If you came in and you told the truth, you would isolate people pretty quick because everybody - you know, everybody wants to feel like they're important and like they belong. And so the easiest path to turning something around is asking everybody their opinion and making them feel like their opinion matters, even if their opinion is wrong in a sense, right? So the way that I would do it is I would go in and I would interview everybody and I'm asking questions strategically that are almost designed like guided discovery.

 

Right. But I'm, I'm making everybody feel important. The other thing that happens is when I talk to everybody in a business and it, really doesn't matter what kind of business I find out who's sleeping with you and what's really going on, who really calls customers back, who doesn't, you that you learn more from the people actually doing the work on the front than you do anybody in any sort of management or executive tower.

 

Most of the time there's a big disconnect between what's really going on and what isn't. then, so that's the kind of tension of truth, right? Is nobody's really talking about the truth. They're reactive most of the time. The more money they're losing, the worse the people usually are, the less talent is there in a sense. There's usually very little talent.

 

But the thing on the other side that's happening that I know is like, I know what the fix is already. Like I know that we're gonna go through this 90 day process and by the end of it, they're gonna be making money or on their way to making money. But it's the definition of magic, right? It really is a magic trick. And the best definition of magic I've ever heard is that magic is the initial and the final solution and the casualty between. Like the magician knows

 

that they're gonna pull a rabbit out of the hat. The magician knows what the final solution is or what the outcome is. It's the audience that doesn't know, right? And so when you go in to turn something around, if you told people like, we're gonna be making money in 90 days, most people are like, well, first of all, I didn't know we weren't making money. Because most of the time the employees don't know that the company isn't making money. But second of all, they would be like, well, there's no way. And then,

 

The other thing is if they're smart at all, the thing they start to figure out is, well, you know how they're gonna make money is they're gonna cut me or they're gonna cut my pay. So panic starts to set in that way, right? Because people, initially when you go in, people will be like, you're gonna come in and cut and restructure, that sort of thing. But what I know the problem is in between is systems. The systems are broken. People are...

 

Jeff Dudan (42:33)

Right.

 

Chris (42:51)

People are secondary in the beginning in a turnaround. Like everybody wants to talk about how people are the most important thing. And when I was young, I used to debate this with people and I would always, you know, lose the debate in the sense that I wasn't convincing anybody, but nobody was fixing businesses like I was. They were in a business and they wanted to believe that people were important so they could believe they were important, right? It's like the same thing I was saying earlier about books like

 

Jeff Dudan (42:55)

Hmm.

 

Chris (43:20)

leaders eat last. Well, that's great because you want people to treat you that way. And so yeah, leaders should eat last because we all feel good, but it doesn't fix anything. Like it's not, it's one little tool in a toolbox, but there's also leaders that everybody should stand up and wait to eat until they're sitting down. You know, it depends on the situation and the application and the time that we're in. And, you know, there's a lot of variables. And so the

 

Jeff Dudan (43:30)

Yeah.

 

Chris (43:47)

The first thing that I have to do to turn something around is I got to get some systems in place that take away all of the friction and improve the customer experience. Because invariably, what I'm going to have to do is add more value to the customer in anything that I'm fixing. Like the thing that fixes everything quicker is customers that perceive that they're getting more value than what they're paying for. And also a lot of times I need to raise the prices.

 

So I have to dramatically increase the value by making the customer experience frictionless and more emotional. I need to add a lot of perceived value and make people feel good through the process. So I need to put a system in place and a system kind of has different elements to the recipe. But the way I see a system in a turnaround is

 

Jeff Dudan (44:16)

Right.

 

The Art of Creating Momentum and Culture Change


Chris (44:44)

that it has a, you know, a built-in improvement mechanism, a feedback loop in a sense. And then there, there's some sort of intention, like what is the intention? What is the outcome we're trying to create that drives that feedback loop? And then usually I'll, I'll gamify it or, or tie pay plans to it or something. But, that's, that's kind of what is happening while they, while I'm getting people's opinions and

 

kind of getting to know everybody and building trust. So then what happens and what I do usually is I kick every change that I'm going to do off on the same Monday. So new pay plans, new pricing strategy, new system, the new people that are starting, because usually got to hire people. If you're going to double the sales, you're going to have to have more capacity to produce. Like in a car dealership, the

 

the most profitable individuals are technicians because technicians are selling time and they're fixing something. So I'm to have to add technicians if I want to, you know, increase the, their, revenue dramatically. And so all those technicians are kind of going to start on the same day. And then I create so much momentum by doing it all at once that people either get on the bus or they get off. you know, the better I

 

Jeff Dudan (45:55)

right.

 

Chris (46:11)

I've gotten at it, the less turnover there is, the more people that buy in, but it's all based on momentum in a sleight of hand. Because if you went to people and you said, hey, the pay plans are out of whack, then they would want to quit because you're going to change their pay plan. And if you say, well, hey, but we're going to increase sales, so you're actually going to make more in the end, they don't believe that you're going to increase sales because they haven't seen it. So you have to do this kind of...

 

Jeff Dudan (46:20)

So you.

 

Chris (46:38)

slide of hand and there's a leap of faith that happens that they're not even aware of. Once momentum starts, there's no way to stop it, in a sense.

 

Jeff Dudan (46:51)

Yeah,

 

that is so counterintuitive because when I've thought about the turnarounds that I've had to get involved with, and there's been several over the years, the best question to ask is if private equity bought the company today and walked in here, what actions would they take and why are we not taking them? But that leads to cuts, right?

 

So basically you have a subtraction mindset where you're saying, well, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to, oops, again, camera. My camera went out. That's fine. The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to cut and then we're going to build back. But you're saying, let's create a wave. Let's create a movement. Let's create momentum. And let's go ahead and start by creating this wave of positive actions.

 

And then inside of that, the subtractions will happen by people that don't choose not to get on board or people that choose not to participate in that. So and.

 

Chris (47:53)

never,

 

never cut a business into profitability. It only happens by increasing the customer experience and your margins. Now you want to run expenses tight and you want to get your, you know, your personnel in line and be a good steward of that. But that will, you know, that will only get you, get you a marginal increase. need, you need a

 

Jeff Dudan (47:57)

Right, you gotta grow it.

 

Chris (48:22)

You need momentum going up. You need more sales. yeah, I've never cut anything into profitability.

 

Jeff Dudan (48:24)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, yeah. Hang on a second, Chris. Right. Is are we going to are we going to get that?

 

Chris (48:34)

or not true profitability that's scalable, you know?

 

And also the

 

deduction mindset of cutting has a negative effect that takes a little time to recover from because if you, you know, if you, if you, if your only thing is cut and you don't have a distraction of momentum and sales going the other way, that becomes the focus and people that are just focused on cutting and expenses don't, don't grow.

 

Like that's why accountants don't make very good CEOs because they don't understand marketing and sales and there's an art to that. And it's a different mindset. And that's why I say leadership, you have to have both. You have to understand accounting and you have to understand people and the magic and psychology. Also they go hand in hand.

 

Jeff Dudan (49:11)

Right.

 

Yeah, as you were starting talking about it, leadership versus management, I was thinking myself, well, is it more art or is it more science? But it's really both. Yeah.

 

Law and Order: Defining Culture Through Boundaries


Chris (49:43)

Yeah. It's art - for sure. Most, and you know, lot of, lot of, people, just back to Locus of Control to that point, cause I think it's a valuable, tool for your, your audiences when you have an external Locus of Control. So you're, you're basically indifferent in your outcome, right? So you're externalizing your fate to your boss or to God.

 

or to the government or to the market you're in, market conditions are the reason why sales are down, whatever it is, invariably what happens is those people also have an unconscious association with routine and safety, right? So your average blue collar person wants to know that they're safe in their job and they wanna show up and do the same thing every day.

 

That is the opposite of what it takes to be successful, which is creativity. The best leaders have to be creative because if you can't externalize control to something outside and you're forced to look in the mirror, when you look in the mirror and you want to change it, you got to be creative. You got to find other paths or, you know, paths of creativity to change the situation that you're in. And so the, one of the most important

 

you know, characteristics of a leader is creativity. You have in its art, right? Being creative is an art.

 

Jeff Dudan (51:18)

Yeah. And you have to create the space. know, one of Vern Harnish's recommendations to CEOs is get two to four hours a week, turn everything off and kind of let the universe organize itself. So, you know, and that's where that create, you know, the music is made between the notes, right? Like my, my ideas, how many great ideas do you have when you've taken three days away from the business and you're just coming back and like, you're like, wait a minute, why, why are we not doing this?

 

You know, it's yeah, I didn't realize till late in my career. So I was a restoration contractor and you know, just banging away, you know, sales estimating all of the all of the stuff contractors do. And, know, I'm a creative and I really didn't embrace it or understand it until probably I was 50 years old and realized, you know, Dan Sullivan helped me a little bit with that. You know, like, what's your unique ability?

 

Like really understanding like who you are, what your unique ability is, and then kind of, and again, like you said, blowing up into that, doubling down on that, know, taking your unique ability and creating a growth plan around it. Like nobody saves their way into prosperity and it's no damn fun on the other side of it. So what are some of the, you mentioned something about

 

one of the first things you do when you go into a dealership is you change everybody's furniture around. Tell me about that. what is, is that just a pattern interrupt? Is that an uncomfortable, know, discomfort, comfort thing? Is that a power move? What is that?

 

Chris (53:00)

It's all of that. So there's a bunch of things going on, right? When you come in from the outside, you're in a gunfight with paper. Like you, you know, you can't fire anybody. Like you're an outsider, right? So your, your influence is created by the perception, right? So if you move everybody's desk, they perceive you to be the one that has authority, right? That makes sense. So that's a

 

Jeff Dudan (53:27)

Yeah.

 

Are they in the desk when you do it? Or do you do it when they're not there? Sometimes?

 

Chris (53:30)

Princess.

 

I usually tell somebody else to tell them to do it, but they know, right. But the second thing is it's a great test. Like there's two tests I'll do is one is I'll just go in and I'll gamify something. And if I gamify something, I'll know how competitive or driven that crew is. Like, do I have leverage here? Like, are they competitive? And then the other thing is, is if you move people's desk and people are coming up to you and they're, you know, they're like, Jeff, I can't, I.

 

Jeff Dudan (53:57)

Hmm.

 

Chris (54:04)

I just can't do it anymore. He moved my desk. I'm gonna go somewhere else. You're talking about a culture, right? And culture is a big part of leadership is understanding what culture is. You have a culture of stagnation. Like people are so stuck that just moving their desk ruins their life. Like I wanna condition constant change and constant adaptability. And so as a leader, you gotta manufacture that, right?

 

Just like as a parent, you wanna put your kids in different situations so they can learn about themselves. You wanna do that with your team too. What happens when COVID happens and you really do have to change? How many restaurants went out of business because they couldn't pivot and go to delivery? It was too, it was too, they're.

 

They're making food, just the difference is they're not serving it in their restaurant. They're serving it to an Uber Eats guy or whatever. Like think about how many restaurants couldn't make that shift and it's an easy shift on the surface, but mentally they couldn't do it. what are we going to put the food in? like, what? It's like, and so that's what happens, right? Is people are just prone to routine and consistency and safety. And so I'm just trying to see how, how

 

Jeff Dudan (55:09)

Right.

 

Sure.

 

a box.

 

Chris (55:28)

How much do I have to break here? How dug in is everybody with that mindset? And that's one easy way to figure that out.

 

Jeff Dudan (55:41)

So you have an established playbook. You've done this hundreds of times, I imagine. How long, what's, when you walk in somewhere, you know, when's the, when is the, when does the rabbit come out of the hat? Is this a 90 day magic trick?

 

Chris (55:58)

So the way that I used to do it, so I don't go into businesses anymore, but I have coaches that do this sort of thing. And the timeline's a little longer, but when I did, was 60 days was the kickoff, and then 90 days was when they'd print their next financial, right? So the...

 

the financial in the third month was the one where we should be making money. Like I could, in two months, I could dial it in, get everybody to, you know, take a leap of faith, get momentum going, but we should make money in that third month.

 

Jeff Dudan (56:40)

It probably takes long.

 

Chris (56:41)

And I'll say the

 

ones that are the ones that make the most money are the ones that are making money. Like when you take a business from losing from losing to breaking even is like childbirth. Then you got to regroup. then it from breaking even to making money is another, another operation. But if they're already making money, like, you know, if they're semi-profitable going to very profitable is way easier because

 

Jeff Dudan (56:48)

Mm.

 

Yeah.

 

Chris (57:09)

They already have some systems in place. The people are probably pretty talented or coherent and they just need a different view. You don't have to drag them along if that makes sense.

 

Jeff Dudan (57:12)

Hmm.

 

Yeah, and then there's a compound effect because the systems you've put in place have now changed the customer experience and over time customer sentiment, customer memory will grow and it'll build upon itself. you mentioned culture. Do you have a go-to definition of culture?

 

Law and Order: Defining Culture Through Boundaries


Chris (57:42)

Yeah, so what is the opposite of culture?

 

Jeff Dudan (57:47)

Mmm.

 

The opposite of culture, I don't know, chaos. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for.

 

Chris (57:55)

So

 

culture is law and order.

 

Jeff Dudan (58:01)

Law and order, okay. A set of norms, a set of boundaries, a set of values, principles, philosophies, activities.

 

Chris (58:09)

Think about.

 

Think about

 

the, in football, the New England Patriots, Belichick, do your job. That's law and order.

 

Jeff Dudan (58:20)

Yeah.

 

Chris (58:26)

We're not talking about how you feel. We're not talking about, we don't let you bring your cell phone to practice anymore, or you don't like this guy or whatever. No, it's like, you got a role to do, do that role. And if you don't do that role, we're going to find somebody else who does it. Now in the back of every player's head on that team, if they didn't do their job, right, what would they expect?

 

Jeff Dudan (58:52)

Fired.

 

Chris (58:54)

It's law and order. So what happens if you murder somebody? What would you expect?

 

Jeff Dudan (59:01)

Well, it depends on whether it was planned or not. I would hope that there would be consequences and I would be arrested for that. That's right, yes.

 

Chris (59:08)

Let's say it's Matt.

 

You're to go to jail, right?

 

That's law and order. You have to have a murder line in your business. First of all, most people don't even know what they stand for. They don't have a clear mission. They don't even know what the mission is or what the problem is they really solve, right? A plumber thinks that the problem they're solving is plumbing, but it's way bigger than that. If you really understand marketing and business and what you're doing,

 

Jeff Dudan (59:23)

Yes.

 

Chris (59:45)

But in your business, you gotta have some sort of murder line where this is the acceptable behavior. And if you cross that, you can't be here. Like that's it. So people think culture is everybody sitting around smoking a vape or whatever, feeling good. no, it's, you know, when you have clear law and order and consequences, you attract better people because talented people wanna be in a situation that isn't chaos.

 

And if you don't have that, you usually have a lot of people with an external locus of control. You end up having to be heavier handed than you want to be as a manager or a leader because you're dealing with chaos. Like people that externalize control are very unpredictable, right? Because the only way to predict something is somebody who's owning the responsibility and trying to get better and learn.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:00:30)

us.

 

Chris (1:00:38)

When you go to somebody and you're like, Hey, that thing you're doing, it the outcome isn't there. We're not selling or customers are miserable when they interact with you. And you're like, Oh, well, all customers are crazy. I can't do anything with that. I, if somebody says, well, what is your observation? What do you think I could do to get better? And I said, well, you could smile and you know, find common ground with people or whatever it is. If somebody wants that feedback and they want to improve. Now I got some, you know,

 

There's got something to deal with. I have a path there that I can go with, but you know, people with an external locus of control usually create a lot of chaos because it's nobody's responsibility and they don't own anything. Nothing's their fault. Nothing's their responsibility. And then as a, as a manager or, know, you just, you overreact because it's just chaos. You're fighting, you know, a lot of people go into work every day and they feel like they're playing whack-a-mole. Well, you designed that.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:01:23)

Yeah.

 

Chris (1:01:37)

That's the outcome of what you're allowing to happen.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:01:37)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, think about the matrix of excuses that are created if you're working with a bunch of people with external locuses of control. It's a competent, everything's getting blamed on something else, supply chain, the economy, the coffee pot. And then, yeah, it just lacks, you know, it just smacks, it's just truth, man. Like to me, I see it as truth, but.

 

to those people that probably is their truth to them. They believe it.

 

Chris (1:02:09)

Well, starts at the top,

 

Usually, the person at the top is making excuses and won't accept responsibility, they have a bunch of like-minded people below them, right? Cause you kind of attract what, who you are in a sense. And so most of the time that it starts at the top, because if you, if you have an internal locus of control and you're intentional about growing your business, you're going to.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:02:25)

Yeah.

 

Chris (1:02:38)

attract and only allow people that feel the same way into your business because it's too important to you. You can only make excuses for so long, Like you won't find anybody here in my company that is going to blame the market. It's not, you know, because this is not how we think, but that's an extension of me. Like, you know, you'll, you'll just like,

 

If you come here to my office, you'll interact with people and you'll find that they're very similar in mindset and in personality and in energy to me. Like they're very nice and kind, but they're looking for the truth and they're driven. And, you know, we're a little bit of the island of the misfit toys in a sense. But we, the thing that we all kind of share in common is we think we can make the world a better place. And it's going to take a lot of work to do that. And we're willing to do it.

 

The Book ‘I Am Leader’ – Vision, Format, and Impact


Jeff Dudan (1:03:38)

I don't wanna get outta here without talking about the book for a few more minutes. This is a...

 

Chris (1:03:45)

How would you describe the book?

 

Jeff Dudan (1:03:48)

So you have an Apple level unpacking experience with several surprises along the way. Books, gifts, thoughtfully packed, high fit and finish. just from the, it just reeks of quality from the moment that you open the box. This is 12 pounds of paper, I believe. I heard on one of your podcasts it was 12 pounds. It felt heavier to me.

 

But 12 pounds of paper and the book, I would say that the book is raw. There's some darkness to it. It's a combination of a compilation of wisdom from others and then clearly some authentic text from you. And I think it's put together in a thoughtful way.

 

And it's one of the most unique pieces of work that I've seen and it should probably be prominently displayed in nice homes and businesses everywhere. How's that?

 

Chris (1:05:00)

Yeah, it's great. So, you know, the intentionality of me creating the book and I kind of shared earlier how I felt like nothing like this existed. And then the other thing that I know is most people buy books and they don't read them, right? Because I've written books and people meet me and they'll go, I have your book. And I go, what do you think? And they're like, I haven't read it yet. Because it's like what 10 % or 15 % of people that buy a book actually read it.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:05:13)

right.

 

Yeah.

 

Chris (1:05:30)

And so what I wanted to do is I wanted to create an experience where anybody who bought it and the price point kind of determines this too, right? Like it's going to be priced at a point where the people that buy it have probably read a book or if they have it, they're going to read it because they've invested that much in it. And then when they get it, it's going to be an experience and there's going to be kind of a tempo to it. And, you know, a way of communicating.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:05:30)

right.

 

Chris (1:05:59)

that pulls them in and keeps them, but they are going to start to feel accomplishment because like it's a page turner, right? You're turning pages, you're thinking about it, but it's not work. I didn't want it to feel like work. I wanted it to feel like discovery. I wanted it to be like, I'm going to think about that and come back. And then the design of it is like a coffee table book where it's not going to fit on your shelf. You're going to put it somewhere prominent. And then it gives it more value because it's a coffee table book. It's big.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:06:08)

Yeah.

 

Chris (1:06:28)

It's important, right? The design of it is intentional. It's something that people are going to come over and they're going to be like, what is this? you know, it's a, we, was asking my marketing department this morning, it's over 40 % of people that buy the book, gift the book to somebody else.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:06:47)

For sure. My kids are getting these. For sure. Yeah. It'll be, it's a legacy. Yeah.

 

Chris (1:06:50)

Yeah. And they're going to be personal to them, right? Yeah. Personally, it's your

 

book now. You wouldn't, this isn't a book you would lend to a friend. You would buy it for them because it's personal.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:07:01)

no. No.

 

Yes. How did you or?

 

Chris (1:07:06)

So

 

all of that went into it. As boring as that might be, that was my intention when I was working.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:07:15)

No, and the imagery is, it's as much art as it is content. The imagery goes with it. So like how I've decided to use the book. So, you know, I got the thing maybe 10 days ago and I couldn't fit it in my suitcase from Phoenix, so I had them ship it to me. So I got it. Thankfully, I got it before we got together on the show here today.

 

And, but like I have, I've had a crazy week personally and professionally, meaning a lot of dinners out and just, you know, not, not a lot of time. So I've only taken an hour maybe to go through it and to read select things. But like, what was apparent to me is like, this is not a skim through book. Like this is where every morning I'm going to wake up and go through 20 pages. And because it's thought you need to think about it.

 

Like it's this isn't a book that you read to get through. Like it's it's not it's not formatted like that. It's it's going to be a passage. There might be 20 words on a page. There might be 500 words on a page. There's going to be some imagery and it's and then there's sections. You know, you've sectioned it off in a way. I'm like, OK, well, this is going to be a book that is, you know, I'll I'll wake up, I'll do my journaling and then I'll this is what I'll read and I'll read for 30 minutes or.

 

or however long I've got and then I'll just bookmark it and then go back to it. Because there's a lot of philosophy in here and again, I've looked more in the I am than the leader side of it, but is that the recommended way to go through this? When you go to some books, it's like, can, what the one that Tim Ferriss wrote, you can go anywhere and start and there's five pages by this, Tools of Titans or whatever, but.

 

Do you mean for this to be consumed in that manner or what was your intent?

 

Chris (1:09:09)

Yeah. And hopefully, but you know, I've experienced it, however you, feel whatever's organic to, to, it, but I'm hoping there's parts where you stop and it takes a couple of days to come back. Like you're like, okay, I to think about this. And, the other thing is most people don't get through IM. Like they, they stayed IM for awhile. Once you're done with IM and you read leader.

 

If you go back and read, am again, I am as a roadmap on how to lead people. The first time you experience, I am, it's going to be personal to you. But the second time you experience it to be like, okay. This is, this is how I become, you know, a, a really effective leader is understanding that this, you know, 90 % of people have an external locus of control. They're very memetic. They're looking for you to give them the answers.

 

They're gonna copy your behaviors. And so you'll experience I am different after you read leader than the first time. It'll read different to you. And that was by design also. There's a story arc in I am, there's one in leader, but then there's one overall too, between the two.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:10:26)

Got it, well, I wanna thank you for everybody for investing the time to put it together. And I hope many people are getting their hands on this. I'm sure they are. And I appreciate the time.

 

A Final Call to Leadership and Raising Standards


Chris (1:10:41)

Yeah. And - just, kind of in, in conclusion to Jeff is like the outcome of being an effective leader is you can just about do anything you want to do. You can make the world a better place. You can solve problems for others and people are looking for leaders. Like the problem that we have in the world right now is we don't have leaders. don't have leaders in politics. We don't have leaders locally. We don't have leaders in business.

 

And everybody's dying for somebody to step up and own the responsibility and improve things, you know, get everybody together to work as a collective to make the world a better place. And that's what we're missing. And, I would just say that you're, know, if you're listening to this, this might be a calling for you to become the leader and be the one that raises their hand and says, Hey, I'll,

 

I'll accept responsibility, I'll do it. And the outcome of that is you're be much happier and fulfilled and you're gonna make others better. Like there's nothing better than improving things and making the world a better place. Even if it's just, you know, in your small way, in your church or with your family or with your business or whatever it is. But hey, the world would be a better place if we had better parents.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:12:06)

Yeah. Isn't it crazy? Isn't it crazy that everything's just the simplest decision to do it?

 

Chris (1:12:07)

Right?

 

Yeah, it really is. It is a decision. But unfortunately, too many people are passive in that decision. They let life make the decision for them.

 

Well, Jeff, I appreciate you having me on and I can't wait to hang out with you again at the next meeting and get to know you more.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:12:33)

Yeah. This has been

 

great. How can people get in touch with you or get in touch with your business, your coaching and education business? I know that you've got a lot going on online. It looks like you have a significant education business, lots of material. What's the best way for people to connect with you and let you help them?

 

Where to Find Chris Collins and His Work


Chris (1:12:54)

Iamleaderbook.com is the website and then you can contact us through there.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:13:00)

Okay, awesome, simple. Do you have time for a curveball and a fastball? All right, here's the curveball. Gun to your head, you've got to start a business in the next 30 days and it's not something you're currently doing. What would you do?

 

Chris (1:13:05)

Sure.

 

Come to my head, I gotta start a business in 30 days. What would I do?

 

And it.

 

Well, just thinking, so I'm walking through my reasoning here is if I just needed to make money, I would probably do some sort of service like pressure washing or something like that to then build up my income. Am I broke when I do this or do I have money?

 

Jeff Dudan (1:13:48)

No,

 

no, you're who you are right now. think the question, the question. Go ahead.

 

Chris (1:13:51)

and I would buy something

 

in hospitality. So I would buy a coffee roaster, coffee shops or a hotel or something like that.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:14:02)

Nice. Yeah. like to see sometimes people like have they've they've seen an opportunity but they haven't they haven't acted on it and they're just you know you never know what you're going to get with that one. But all right here's the fastball this one will come right down the middle. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life that you could offer them based on your journey what would that be.

 

Closing Reflections on Kindness, Action, and Impact


Chris (1:14:26)

The opportunity of a lifetime comes once a day.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:14:30)

Wow.

 

Chris (1:14:31)

You just got to be willing to see it. Like there's opportunity everywhere. You have the opportunity to make somebody's day by buying their coffee when they're behind you in line, just, you know, telling somebody that they did a good job or, you know, spending a little more time on something. And, then on the business side, you know, figuring out problems for customers and, know, making the world a better place, but the opportunity.

 

Is there, you know, just, just think like, you know, just for example, you coming up to me and, and talking to me about my, my talk at the meeting we were at, like you, weren't aware that that made my day or whatever, but, those, know, those sort of things, kindness and, you know, saying something when, when others won't and being the one that steps up and like you said, it's a choice.

 

but making the choice to do the thing that makes others better and raise self-esteem. At the end of the day, maybe we're on the business of self-esteem because the world has low self-esteem.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:15:45)

not to unend this podcast because we just wrapped it up, but I do want to tap on this because you mentioned it. The reason I probably the reason I came up not I was very compelled by what you're saying and I wanted to meet you and and I was excited about the books and all. But, you know, I just so I got covid in December and I got walking pneumonia. I was down for like three weeks and I went like deep, deep into David Goggins.

 

and I didn't get it at first. And as I read his books and then I listened to him, it finally dawned on me that like our standards are the greatest thing that we can give other people and that you need to pursue your limits and standards in the face of no consequences or no purpose whatsoever, just for the sake of your standards, them unto themselves. So.

 

You know, I, and I was leaving, I was, I'll, I'll share it. was at, was an event the next week. I'll share the story real quick. And, know, how many times do you walk by and you see a homeless person and you're like, you know, I'd like to help them, but you just don't take the action. I don't know. Some people say don't, but whatever. So I'm at this meeting and I got to go over, I'm going to Tommy Mello's place to do his podcast. And I'm probably like pushing time and I just go down to this.

 

outside the hotel to this place to get something to eat. And I shove a huge breakfast burrito in my face, right, really fast. And then I walk back and there's a homeless guy and he's got a dog with him. And he's just sitting there. And there's about 75 people out at the cafe and he's drawing little pictures and he's got a sign that says food on it or whatever. And I walked in and I went to the elevator and I'm like, well, look, you know.

 

You don't do it for social media. You don't do it for these things. You know, I just left my bag there. I went out back where I got the burrito. I got two huge turkey sandwiches and I brought them over to the guy. Just said, hey, one for you, one for the dog, right? And Norm MacDonald makes this great joke, by the way, about a homeless, where he sees a homeless guy with a dog and he says, the dog's thinking, my God, this is the longest walk. He never gets home.

 

So, you I thought about that joke when I saw the guy with the dog, but then I'm like, but the dog was like in a great mood, but man, it was pretty thin and stuff like that. like, you know, in that moment, I just took the action and like that's what you like that I took that action in that day. And and that's it, man. And you just you just do it for the sake of doing it or, you know, giving somebody a smile or paying somebody a compliment just just because and you don't real like it costs you nothing.

 

you cost you nothing to do it. so I really appreciate that point. And, and with that, I am leader.com. I am a leader, I am, I am leader.com. I am leaderbook.com. And you can get in touch with Chris there, highly recommend. Chris, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for being on today on the home front.

 

Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up


Chris (1:18:46)

leader book.

 

Thank you, Jeff, was really fun.

 

Jeff Dudan (1:18:58)

Yeah, man, the amazing Chris Collins here with Jeff Duden. We have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.


Conclusion



This conversation between Jeff Dudan and Chris Collins digs deep into the mechanics of turning around a business, building intentional leadership, and understanding human behavior in work and life. From the psychology of systems to the power of self-awareness, it’s a masterclass in both strategy and authenticity.


To hear more insights like these, subscribe to On the HomeFront wherever you get your podcasts.


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Be Bold and True to Yourself | Stacy Madison | On The Homefront

August 22, 2025
Brief Summary In this empowering episode of The Homefront, Jeff Dudan speaks with Stacy Madison, a fearless entrepreneur who turned leftover pita bread into a $250 million snack empire. From academic struggles to food cart innovation to founding Be Bold Bars, Stacy shares a refreshingly real journey of grit, reinvention, and authentic leadership. This is a candid look at what it truly takes to build a business, sell it, and find purpose again—with boldness at every step. Key Takeaways Persistence outweighs perfection. Stacy’s journey began with academic challenges and job losses, but her relentless drive propelled her forward. Solve a real problem, and a business may follow. Stacy's Pita Chips were born out of necessity—using leftover bread from her sandwich cart. Success is built on micro-decisions. From how to cut pita bread to managing crisis after a factory disaster, daily choices determined her trajectory. Exits aren’t just about money—they’re about life alignment. Stacy prioritized lifestyle and purpose over the highest offer when selling her company. Generosity pays forward. She gave substantial bonuses to her team after the sale, and many joined her again at Be Bold. Starting over requires discipline, even with resources. Despite past success, Stacy approaches Be Bold with thoughtful budgeting and intentional growth. Featured Quote “Be yourself outside of your comfort zone, little by little—do it again.” TRANSCRIPT Stacy Madison’s Origin Story: From Sandwich Cart to Snack Icon Jeff Dudan (00:01.994) Good afternoon, everybody. I am Jeff Duden and we are On the Homefront. As always, this podcast is brought to you by Homefront Brands, simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform, encouraging entrepreneurs to take action and transform their lives, all the while delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front where it counts. If this sounds like you, check us out at Homefront Brands and start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty. On the Homefront, I will be. looking for you here. And now we have an incredible opportunity to talk to Stacey Madison. Welcome, Stacey. Stacy Madison (00:38.806) Thank you so much, Jeff. I'm excited to be here. Jeff Dudan (00:41.682) Yeah, this is going to be so great. I've consumed so much of what you've got out there. And I'm so excited about your story. And it's just another example of persistence and resolve and overcoming. And I've been accused of being too stupid to fail. That was my situation. I'm not saying, but like just, I don't care how many consultants tell me this isn't going to work, we're doing this. and we're gonna push through, you know, success is through, it's not around and it's certainly not going backwards. So I will quickly, so Stacey Madison is an American entrepreneur who gained recognition for creating Stacey's Pita Chips and Be Bold Bars. Born and raised in Massachusetts, attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and then moved to California to get a master's degree in social work. She and her boyfriend, Mark, were selling pita sandwiches from a converted hot dog cart in Boston and decided to solve the problem. What are we gonna do with all this bread that we didn't sell today? So they decided to bake the leftovers into pita chips, adding a dash of Parmesan or cinnamon. And at first they handed them out for free, but soon discovered people were happy to pay for them. And that was the kernel of an idea that led to an exit and a business that was worth, the Pepsi Corporation, $250 million. So that is just an incredible story. We're so excited to hear it today. And there's much, much more to unpack here. So, Stacy, welcome. Stacy Madison (02:11.842) Thank you. I don't think I could have gotten into Skidmore, honestly. I didn't go to Skidmore. I like it. Jeff Dudan (02:15.806) You didn't get in there? Jeff Dudan (02:19.726) Well, where did this come from? I don't know where this came from, then, my flawed research assistant. Well, look, you know, we've just had an honorary degree now. I just gave you one. I just gave you one. They're fine. I'll send you your diplomas in the mail. All right. Stacy Madison (02:23.262) I know how it is, it's funny. It's okay, but I went... Stacy Madison (02:33.026) Do I just go with it or do I? I mean, thank you. Thank you. I did go to UMass Amherst and I honestly, I didn't get in there either. I had to go at first and from home and then, you know, from like to UMass Boston and as, and commute. And then I was able to transfer into UMass Amherst. So. Jeff Dudan (02:46.806) I'm gonna go get some water. Jeff Dudan (03:02.429) Ah. Stacy Madison (03:02.814) Yeah, I was too stupid to fail too. Or maybe I did fail. I, you know, my first year I was on academic probation. I did, I was able to spend the next three years trying to get my grades up. Jeff Dudan (03:05.526) Well, you know. Jeff Dudan (03:12.926) Well, but did they have you back? Did you get to come back? Jeff Dudan (03:22.226) Wow. So while we're... Stacy Madison (03:24.781) I graduated with a solid C. Jeff Dudan (03:26.962) Well, that's good. Hey, you know what they say the A students teach and do research and the B students making a great make a great living working for the C students like that's and that's that a fan. I just defended lots of people out there, but whatever. Well, so yeah, so I was a so my I went to the University of Northern Iowa for a year and they did not invite me back. I couldn't I was well below the two point. So back to a Juco in Chicago. Stacy Madison (03:34.148) There you go! Stacy Madison (03:39.339) I like it. Jeff Dudan (03:56.082) where I majored in Olympic weightlifting and CPR one through six, and then out to App State. But late bloomers, sometimes we finish well, right? It's all about finishing, finishing impeccably. All right. Well, so look, there's so much to unpack here and I would just maybe kick it off to you and Stacy Madison (04:01.175) Hmm Stacy Madison (04:08.162) Yeah. Yes. Yes. Career Change Courage: From Social Work to Street Food Jeff Dudan (04:22.526) Talk a little bit about early what makes you you. You've said that your father and your sister had influence on you. I know as you went through business life, you had to have other people around your table and experiences that shaped you, but like going back to help some of our entrepreneurs that are maybe thinking about doing something for the first time, or they're young in their careers, and they're like, do I jump now? Speak to that if you don't mind. Stacy Madison (04:47.978) Yeah, I mean, one of the things is, you know, I went to school, I got my LICSW, I was a clinical social worker. I really did that for a while and I was one of those career change people. And, you know, because everybody's like, oh, well, if you start out young and then, you know, that's the best time to do it because you don't have anything to lose, da da da. And then, but you have to also look at the... flip side for all the people who have been working that are afraid to make that jump, you also have something to fall back on. So I kind of looked at it that way where, hey, if I try something else, then at least I know A, I tried and B, I wouldn't have any of like regrets about not doing it and not ever knowing if I could do something different. And see, I was like, hey, you know, what the hell? If I do fail, I can always go back to being a social worker. Jeff Dudan (05:49.095) Yeah, so. Stacy Madison (05:51.139) So get your education and study hard. Get good grades. Jeff Dudan (05:53.954) I think so. Yeah. I mean, so much of college is about learning how to learn. And then, you know, so many people don't even do what they did in college, but they, they learned how to learn and kind of maybe where resources are, maybe made some connections and that kind of stuff. So, so you, so you graduated from school and then what happened? Stacy Madison (06:01.687) Yeah. Stacy Madison (06:15.306) Yeah, and then I went, so I graduated from school. I went to work for my dad as a clinical social worker, because he had a private practice. For a while I was down in DC and I worked for an organization, a group home that worked with pregnant, homeless, drug addicted women. And I loved that, but I only made like $22,000 a year. Now I'm dating myself. It was a long time ago. Although, you know, they're still not paid. Everybody still, it shows. No, well, that was, I worked for an organization and that shows just how, you know, grossly underpaid. And that's why I went to work for my dad because, you know, I could go into private practice and I could make a decent salary. But the problem was, although I loved the job in DC with those women, Jeff Dudan (06:47.83) Come on, come on dad, give me a raise dad. Stacy Madison (07:10.518) When I went into private practice and did marriage and family counseling and things like that, I made good money, but I was also working primarily in the evening. And I had zero, like I'd go, I'd unlock my door, I'd see the patients, I'd come home and I'd lock the door. And I was just like, felt very isolated in that sense. So you know, you got to have that balance, which I did not have. Jeff Dudan (07:34.282) So you jumped from there, and what did you jump into? Stacy Madison (07:37.834) Um, I into what did I jump? I'm not going to say, I kind of jumped into Fabbitt Mark. I'm not, does that, can I say that or no? Jeff Dudan (07:49.775) Oh, well, there you go. I think you just did, and it's all good. Living in a Wok-Washed Shower: Hawaii, Hustle, and Startup Lessons Stacy Madison (07:55.114) No, I started, Mark and I started seeing each other and he was doing his psychology. Um, his, uh, his, what is it called? That he was working at the VA hospital out in Hawaii. And then I was like, well, you know what? I should go live in Hawaii for a year. And I left my, my, you know, my, my dad was not thrilled. Um, but I moved out to Hawaii with Mark and we lived in this like. real shithole. It was so terrible. There were like massive cockroaches and we didn't have a kitchen so we had a plug-in walk that we washed in the shower. So periodically when you showered there'd be like rice in the drain and yeah, it was just terrible. Jeff Dudan (08:44.31) So no sink in this place. That was... Oh, I see. Stacy Madison (08:47.218) Well, the wok wouldn't fit in the sink. It was just this little sink. Yeah, so you had to wash it in the tub. Whatever. It all contributes to who you are today. Jeff Dudan (08:53.078) Bye! Jeff Dudan (08:56.945) So you're... Jeff Dudan (09:00.994) Well, so like that's the important thing, like I think is when you like, you didn't end up where you are by mistake. And you know, there's entrepreneurs like you have a different view of risk. If you start with little, then everything you have, and I bet you're big on gratitude because I know that you're very generous. If you start with little, everything is a bonus. You know, and everything in life is, it just feels like, man, I can't believe that this happened to me, but you made it happen to you. So you're here, you take a flyer, you go out to Hawaii, which is great. I believe, and I encourage my kids, everybody needs an adventure in life and you need to take it when you can. And if there's not a good reason to say no, you say yes, and you just roll with it and you go. And so you're out in Hawaii. You're stepping in rice in the drain and you get in the shower and you get involved with a startup in the food business. Stacy Madison (09:57.247) Nish hour. Stacy Madison (10:04.362) Yeah. So I was working for, um, I was working for this company who, uh, who actually is probably kicking themselves right now because they fired me. Um, I, so I, so I was working for this, this restaurant and I kind of worked my way up from, you know, waitress, uh, head waitress to assistant manager. And then they were opening up. Jeff Dudan (10:18.473) Well, you're probably, you're unemployable. Stacy Madison (10:32.542) Um, from this restaurant, they were opening up a tiny surf theme place. And they asked if I wanted to go there and be part of the, you know, of that. And I was like, yeah, it sounds like way more fun than the, you know, the restaurant and this is, you know, and, and, um, so we worked on it from the ground up. And in Hawaii, you really have to work two jobs to, you know, you need two paychecks to afford to just live in a place where you have rice and you're. in the drain of your shower. And so we opened this place, we did the grand opening. They said, listen, we're working crazy hours. And if it gets open and it's successful, then we're going to give you a bonus. And so it was, we were bringing in money like cash. We were stuffing it in beer boxes and sticking it down there because we couldn't fit it all in the register. It was crazy. We had all Jeff Dudan (11:01.982) Yeah. Yeah. Stacy Madison (11:31.09) and they're signing their surfboards, we're hanging them on the walls, the radio stations are there. It was real, it was great. Then afterward I met with the manager, the GM, and I'm like, well, you know, let's talk about the bonus, how do you feel about the opening? Do you feel it went well? And, you know, after he said, let me talk to the owners, let me talk to the owners. And after a couple of these meetings, he said, okay, I spoke to the owners, let's meet tomorrow, whatever. We sit down and he says, I'm gonna have to let you go. And I had like, and you know. Jeff Dudan (11:59.433) R. Stacy Madison (12:04.142) I was just like, I bust out crying. I don't know what else to tell you. I don't know, I mean, you wanna keep your emotions intact and you wanna be like, okay, it's okay, you know, oh, I'm gonna handle this professionally. And I was like, I'm gonna start balling. I was like, I had never been fired. I had never worked so hard. And I was like, I just was, I could not believe it. I went home, I told Mark, Mark was like, we're gonna kill him. And. Jeff Dudan (12:29.194) Hahaha Stacy Madison (12:32.13) Um, you know, cause we really wanted to be a part of it. And, um, and honestly, I learned at the moment, you can't see what you learned. You can look back on it later when you're out of the soup and you can look back at it and you can say, I learned how to open up, I learned how to open a place from startup, I learned how to be a good boss. Like if they had just been honest with me and said, Jeff Dudan (12:46.26) Right. Stacy Madison (13:01.002) You know, we need you for eight months to a year. I would have said, that's perfect. Then I'll go back home and that'll be my one year in Hawaii. And you know, it'll start and end and you know, it's okay. I'm not, you know, looking for 10 years out here. Right. So, um, you know, I learned a lot from that experience. And most of all, I learned that if I could work so hard and if I could do it for somebody else, then yes, I can do it for myself. Jeff Dudan (13:30.387) Fantastic lesson. So you're now you're you're unemployed and you were there. How long after that did you guys leave Hawaii and head back to Boston? Condo Cuisine to Cart Cuisine: The Birth of Stacy’s Pita Chips Stacy Madison (13:41.09) Well, then I was like, oh, well, we can do it for ourselves here. So we started, um, so we started cooking in our apartment and we lived in this hot, well, from this time we moved out of the shithole and we moved into this high rise apartment and we had this deal where we could get discounted rent. If we cooked for our roommate and then we were like, well, why don't we just cook for the whole building? And so we kind of started this thing called condo cuisine. Jeff Dudan (13:53.748) Yeah. Stacy Madison (14:11.351) And we would hang up a flyer and put it in the lobby. And we would tell people to just fax us, fax us, if you'd like your dinner delivered to the building, right? And we would, we could do it in this building, there's five other buildings, then we could expand and you start playing the calculator game and we could really make a career with this. So we started doing this and then we very quickly got shut down because we were just making it in the apartment and we didn't have a commercial kitchen. Blah, blah, blah. One day we got a, not a fax, but a phone call that said, hi, where are you working at? So that was the end of it. But again, you know, it started to take off and we were onto something and, and, um, so we said, well, why don't we take the same concept and do something like this in Boston? Or why don't we open up a place in downtown Boston and without the money to do it, um, or if we had no, no, nothing to start with. Jeff Dudan (14:44.95) Yeah. Stacy Madison (15:07.39) And so we ended up just buying a food cart and we converted the food cart into, you know, kind of like a deli counter and we put fresh tomatoes in the front plexiglass and made it all look fresh and healthy. And we made healthy roll-up sandwiches. And at the end of the, you know, we always had all this fresh bread. Jeff Dudan (15:18.814) Uh huh. Stacy Madison (15:31.062) We always had to keep extra fresh bread because we had to have excess inventory. Because if you run out of bread, you can't make your roll up. And so that's what we did. We made the pita chips with the excess inventory of bread every day. And then we started handing them out for free to people standing in line. And you know the rest of the story. Jeff Dudan (15:51.57) Yeah, absolutely. So you're in the financial district in Boston at this point in time? Okay, so you're working in there, people are lining up, you're starting to get a name. And then as a hallmark of a great, because if you read like scaling up, like business is leadership marketing and cash, they'd say, you know, so you said, well, why don't we do, you went to pitched Macy's at this point and you said, let's do Stacy's at Macy's and you pitched that, right? Stacy Madison (15:56.246) Yes. Yeah. Stacy Madison (16:15.166) Yeah, Stacy's at Macy's. I'm good at this. I'm good at that kind of stuff. Jeff Dudan (16:22.622) And you pitch that and then too, when you had done your condo cuisine business too, you'd started doing simple math. Like, I love simple businesses that have simple math. All right, this is what we make on a sandwich. If we can sell this many, we can make this and we can make that. And so now you've built a business plan, whether you knew it or not. You've had success now twice in building businesses. So... and now you're thinking bigger. So you're starting to like see, like if you look backwards behind your success, which by the way, like it was basically, Stacey's was a 10 year run, right? I mean, that's amazingly fast. Like that is amazingly fast to accomplish what you accomplished. So how did it, you know, how did your thinking change at that point and said, we're making a living and we set out to... Stacy Madison (17:00.268) Mm-hmm. It's amazingly fast, yeah. From “Let’s Make Rent” to “Let’s Build an Empire” Jeff Dudan (17:16.426) to make a living and pay our rent and to live and have fun. When did you just start to say, wait a minute, I see a vision here that can be bigger than that. Did you see it one time or did it kind of continue to just evolve over time? Stacy Madison (17:34.994) No. Maybe some of the people around me saw, but I did not see, I did not see it getting to the size that it did. Like if somebody said to me, oh, you're gonna be running a company that sells $60 million in snack food a year. I'd be like, that's not me. Jeff Dudan (17:36.67) You didn't see it? Stacy Madison (17:58.572) So that piece of it I did not see. Stacy Madison (18:03.47) to, I, uh, yeah. And, and I was always one of those people that had great admiration for people who could think that way for people who are like, okay, this is what I want to do, this is the plan, this is how we lay it out. And I, it's just not the way that I, that I roll, you know? And I think that, um, you know, everybody was like, well, what about selling? What about an exit strategy? What about, like, we didn't have it. We w we, like you said, we built the company because we loved what we were doing. And we wanted to make a living doing what we love to do. And, but eventually, you know, it comes to a point where, like toward the end, the company was more dictating what we wanted to do than us dictating it to the company. Jeff Dudan (18:53.738) Now you funded when you decided to kind of go for it and start producing greater volume of products. You went and got an SBA loan. Is that correct? Yeah, so. Stacy Madison (19:03.198) Mm-hmm. Yeah, with an S, yeah, we borrowed $30,000 from friends and family, and we used that as collateral to get a loan. Jeff Dudan (19:16.018) Right. And then what'd you use that for? Do you rent a building and put a production line together? I mean, I'm just interested to know how you figured that stuff out. Stacy Madison (19:23.422) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we literally piecemealed our manufacturing together. We went from, you know, baking chips by hand and bagging them by hand and cutting them by hand. Mark's bicep was like right bicep was massive. So, you know, it's stuff like that that tells you that everybody's like, well, well, how did you figure out how to manufacture and build this whole production? Well, look, if you got a bicep that's four inches bigger on your right arm than on your left. Jeff Dudan (19:37.471) Ha ha ha. Stacy Madison (19:52.522) Then you want, then you know, well, I need something to cut this. Right. And you go out and you, you tore other chip plants and you're like, Oh, this is how they cut it. Oh, this is how they cut that. Oh, this is how they cut carrots for Campbell's soup. And well, maybe we can cut our bread like that. And that's actually what we did was we ended up with a, one of those cutters and we re-spaced the blades. So instead of cutting that tiny little carrot in the soup, it cut the bread. Jeff Dudan (20:24.086) Mm-hmm, and then you started distributing to like a whole food like a trader Joe's I think trader Joe's was a big account for you guys Okay Crumbs to Crises: Storms, Setbacks, and Scaling to 300K Sq. Ft. Stacy Madison (20:29.298) Oh, it was bread and circus at the time. And then bread and circus was bought by whole foods and then, you know, like, um, we were part of the growth of the natural food industry at the same time, because the product was just innately natural. I mean, we, oh, we didn't use, it's not like we went out to seek this ingredient or that ingredient. You know, it was, it was. Pita bread, a little bit of, uh, healthy oil and like the cinnamon sugar was naturally milled cane sugar. We used imported Parmesan cheese or we used stuff like, we just use great stuff and it aligned with what they were doing at the same time. And in the beginning, we didn't start there. We started in kind of more gourmet food stores and we ended up transitioning to do more in the natural food arena. Jeff Dudan (21:21.878) Yeah, so you started in 96 with the truck and then you're moving kind of into the 2000s for the audience, which would be kind of where a lot of the healthy food market was really starting to form and people were thinking about making healthy choices. Although I think in the numbers, I think we all defeat ourselves anyway. Fitness is growing as fast as fast food and they just feed each other business. So there's no, I've got a fitness concept Stacy Madison (21:32.736) Mm-hmm. Stacy Madison (21:41.568) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (21:52.614) There's no lack of people that need to lose the weight again. So trying to have healthy options. So you're moving into that. You got this great business going and you had some setbacks. There was a storm that kind of blew up your factory a little bit. Yeah. Stacy Madison (21:57.152) Yeah. Stacy Madison (22:13.538) A microburst. Who the hell, what the hell is that? Like, it looked like a torpedo came and struck the warehouse. At this point, we were in about almost a 300,000 square foot facility. And it knocked out a good, like 20% of the building. It was terrible. But, you know, that's what being an entrepreneur is. Jeff Dudan (22:18.568) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (22:29.022) Wow. Jeff Dudan (22:40.722) You're... Yeah. Stacy Madison (22:42.434) kind of about is the, you know, you just at a left field, something happens. It's that you can't control. So you just have to every day, yeah. And I think it's just like a test of your skillset, your problem solving crisis intervention type skillset. And it's those, like it's those big things, but you know. Jeff Dudan (22:52.073) Yeah, every day something goes wrong. Stacy Madison (23:10.198) How do you get so big, so fast and do it so well? What it comes down to is the tiny little decisions that you're making every day that kind of add up to that. So yes, everybody has that roller coaster and the stuff thrown at them, but not to ignore the day-to-day things, decisions that you had to make every single day. And not all right, not all correct, but... Jeff Dudan (23:23.913) Right. Stacy Madison (23:39.362) You know, how do you handle those situations, your relationships, with your customers? Look, when your factory blows up, your inventory goes bye bye, you know, you better have a good relationship with the Trader Joe's, the Costco's, the Whole Foods of the world, or they're just gonna be like, okay, we'll take somebody else. Jeff Dudan (23:56.394) Right, yeah. And decisions are so cumulative. The compound effect of bad decisions has an impact on the velocity, and I mean, the quality of your life, the velocity of your business. And then also the other way, I mean, if you get on a good run of making good decisions that work out, confidence, if you have investors, confidence by your partners, confidence by your staff, the whole thing, right? It's, you have to be so, So objective man and so pure when you're when you're at the head of something like that and they have to they have to know that you're making decisions with confidence and you know that are taking everything into into effect and you know the fact that you were able to navigate that business to the size that it was so quickly. Man that's that's real game like real like that is game right there so. Stacy Madison (24:48.398) You say that so much more eloquently than I did. I hope I can go back and listen and record that and take what you said, because you're right. Yeah, yeah. Jeff Dudan (24:54.747) Well. Jeff Dudan (25:00.462) 100% 100% well Evident advantage I wrote a book called discernment which is the business athletes regimen for a great life through better decisions, so we've got a copy on the way to you and So but yeah, so I mean but I'm just like I'm big about the reason I'm so big about decisions is because I've made so many bad ones I mean like I mean when I look back at the failures, it's like well that was avoidable Jackass like you could have easily Stacy Madison (25:11.906) There we go. Stacy Madison (25:19.8) Yeah. Stacy Madison (25:25.39) Bye! Jeff Dudan (25:27.034) Seen that coming if you would have just taken a second and I mean we carry the weight of our decisions like on our back For our whole life like our whole life, man Um, we bought we bought a couple of horses, uh when my wife was just getting out of college which is some number of years ago and We must have fed them well because they are still alive And they're 30 mid 30s, right? So But you what are you gonna do? Stacy Madison (25:34.42) Yeah. Stacy Madison (25:48.947) Ah. Jeff Dudan (25:54.662) Like we can't sell a property because they live there. Like we can't, you know, but when she, I mean, she might as well have bought the horse at a checkout, you know, checking out at the pet food store. I mean, it was just like a snap decision, but yet, you know, 35 years later, you were still, you know, they're not supposed to. They do. But yeah, so I mean, but like that's, you know, kind of a small example. Well, so I, Stacy Madison (26:00.631) Yeah. Stacy Madison (26:11.314) No horses live that long. Wow. Wow. Jeff Dudan (26:24.422) You know, I've heard you talk a little bit about it. And a lot of our listeners are in the franchise industry. They own franchise brands. We've got a lot of M&A activity in our space. So even at the franchisee level, people are buying boxes, franchising, you know, we think is one of the greatest wealth creation business models ever invented. There's so much as franchised in this country and this concept of an exit. And, you know, so you, you, you know, you're You're tap dancing on rice in a shower, in a shithole apartment. And then the next thing you know, I mean, relatively short, you're going through this whirlwind, you're probably bootstrapping along the way, because I don't think you took a lot of capital. You borrowed money. If you couldn't afford it, you did without it, or you found another way to get it done. And then all of a sudden, I assume it's an inbound offer. I don't know if you ran a process, but Pepsi Cola comes and says, here for you, your partner, and anybody that you care to include is $250 million. And... The $250 Million Decision: Selling Stacy’s to PepsiCo Stacy Madison (27:30.794) Well, we had, so it was when we were approached by multiple conglomerates at once. That is when we had to sit down and take a hard look at what we were doing, what we're the, you know, the kind of the state of the business at that point and the state of each of us in our personal lives. I mean, Mark and I were married. You know, we were friends, uh, business partners, married, divorced. Jeff Dudan (27:38.46) Mm. Stacy Madison (28:01.25) I went off and had kids on my own. We maintained being business partners and I had two toddlers and, you know, and he, you know, was, was hoping to do more travel and, you know, so we'd kind of take a look at all of that and say, you know, and at that point, um, decide like should we still be holding onto this? And is this company, you know, still what I love to do every day? And is it allowing me to do the things that I want to do with myself, with my children, or with Mark, with his friends, or whoever, whatever? So yeah, so that's when we decided, well, maybe if this company and that company are interested, maybe there'd be other companies interested. Maybe we should put together a team. So we put together a team of accountants and investment banker. And we started interviewing all the lawyers. We had started interviewing all those people. chose who we related to the best, honestly, who was a believer. Right. And that's when we went out and we put the company for sale. It was such an easy choice for us with the investment bank team, because we had this no ties allowed kind of thing. We had it posted on the front door and some of the guys would come and they would be like, oh, in their suits and be looking at each other like, Jeff Dudan (29:16.822) Okay. Stacy Madison (29:25.794) What do we do? What do we do now? Okay, take your time. I'll get stuffing it in their bags and stuff. And we're like, and then another one walked in who had been in probably, you know, 45 massive bakeries all across the country and knew like the equipment and the machines and, oh, you're just, and kind of spoke our language and was really willing to put themselves out there and said, okay, well, we think we can get you this much money. We're like, okay, well, And this is what we charge and this is our commission. And then we said, well, oh, and if it is above that, then maybe you should get double the commission. If you get like an extra 20 or 15 million more then hell, we'll pay way more, that kind of thing. And so we kind of just spoke that language and that's how we moved forward. And you know what? We didn't... take the highest offer. The highest offer had, you know, had earnouts and had some clauses in there that we were just like, well, taking a step back, that doesn't get us to where we take the money aside, like where do we want our life to be? So that's why it was, and we did feel like that, that, you know, being the leader of Frito's Health and Wellness Initiative was a good place for the company to be. Jeff Dudan (30:54.538) Yeah, so you said so many really wise things there. So number one, don't sell your company yourself. Get an investment banker, get proper representation, run a process, make them compete for it, right? You can't hold somebody in the seat, you know, negotiating a deal yourself. These people are experts, they're gonna hurt you. And then the other thing is, which you don't hear people talking about enough is, man, like, it's probably more about the terms than it is about the absolute price. And people I see people get really enamored when they have their company and they get this really big price, but like there's this earn out and then there's a, you know, on the on the next sale, there's a preference and all of these types of things where actually like you got to stand on one foot and you know, spin two basketballs to get the money that you're looking for other than like, you know, get the certain money now. And because you went back and worked for the company for a little bit after close. How did you find that? Stacy Madison (31:58.77) Yeah. And, and you know, when you, when, like you said, you have to spin to do a lot of all of that at once. I mean, selling the company is a full-time job. More so, I mean, you look at how hard those investment bank people and lawyers and accountants and everybody on that team, look at how hard everybody is working. And then, you know, imagine, you know, you can't do that yourself and run a company. Jeff Dudan (32:07.382) it is. Jeff Dudan (32:21.91) Right, right. So you went and you worked, you worked back for the company for maybe a year after, I think if I remember correctly. And it's very difficult for founders to go into corporate. I mean, it's just the decision criteria is different. It's a change, right? I am unemployable. When I sold my business, we had... Stacy Madison (32:31.586) Yes. Stacy Madison (32:42.049) It is. Jeff Dudan (32:46.578) We had an executive team and all that. And they wanted, that was the last day I ever talked to those people. Was on the phone when the wires where everybody was signing off, which is a great day, right? You're on this phone. I had my kids and my wife around the table and the 27 people sign off on this deal. And then the phone goes dead and they looked at me. They didn't ask me a word. I didn't even, I just, like I said nothing. And they're like, is it done? And I'm like, I don't know. I guess that's it. You know, everybody said yes, it was New Year's Day. They all got up on New Year's Day to do the deal. And, but, but personally now, yeah. Stacy Madison (33:21.77) Yeah, and you know what it comes through as a wire. You know, they don't show up, they don't show up at your door with one of those big giant checks or anything. Hey, hey, hey. Jeff Dudan (33:26.878) They're big checks. Yeah. No, it just silently slides into your account. Stacy Madison (33:33.94) It goes into your account. Okay, I guess that's it. Jeff Dudan (33:38.378) All right, so now it's in your account, right? And you're sitting there and now you can do anything in the world, you realize now that you can do anything you want in the world. And for a lot of people, for me as well, it's a very uncomfortable, untethered, you're kind of walking, you're light on your feet because you're like, holy crap, man, I can like. Stacy Madison (33:42.614) Yes. Jeff Dudan (34:04.474) I can go buy that. I can go buy this. I can get like what but but like what do you do? How how did that? How did that land for you? Life After the Wire: Letting Go and Finding What’s Next Stacy Madison (34:11.626) Yeah, it's like that, what do I do now? You know, and it didn't hit me right away because I still was with Stacey's for a little while. And, you know, and I really was only contracted for 20 hours a year. But I ended up going in every day, going in every day. Well, I thought I was helping with the transition. And honestly, I think it was probably just getting in the way. Jeff Dudan (34:14.016) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (34:20.116) Yeah. Stacy Madison (34:40.538) Um, and it puts you in a very powerless position because, you know, people would like customers or employees or, you know, anybody who came to me thinking that I could just make those like decisions. Then I was not in a position to do that anymore because it was a different type of process and, you know, so, um, you know, so I couldn't, so that really made it uncomfortable. It was hard, um, having people who reported to me report to somebody else. It's just that nobody ever reported to me. We all just worked together. And so this whole situation was really hard. So then I said, you know what? Well, I only need to be here 20 days a year. If they need me, I can fly back from anywhere. So I took my kids. I went to Europe for five months. I rented places. I opened the doors and I said, Hey, anybody who wants to go to Europe and visit, this is where we're going to be. And so people came and visited and you know, it was really nice. And I was on the phone with, there was something going back and forth. They tried to renegotiate my salary at some point because they had had movement in the top of Pepsi and people looking at stuff and why are we doing this or that and then they tried to renegotiate salary and then I said, I was on the phone at like 3 a.m. with my lawyer and my Mike was like, why are you doing this? He's like, you can just walk away. And why are you sitting here? Why are you talking to me at three o'clock in the morning? Why, you know, and so I ended up basically terminating my agreement at that point, you know, after the first year. And then again, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? And it seems like every time I ask myself that question, I travel. Jeff Dudan (36:36.034) Oh, okay. Yeah. Stacy Madison (36:38.954) I travel. And it really does help me. After I had had breast cancer, I had double mastectomies. And it was right before I opened the juice bar. I upped my kids and we went for another five or six months, went to Southeast Asia, I homeschooled them from there. And we went all around, nine countries, basically. Jeff Dudan (37:04.486) Wow Stacy Madison (37:07.85) you know, backpacks, guest houses, ended up coming home, moving, putting my house on the market the next day, moving to a neighborhood that was much more neighborhoody for my kids. And then again, my kids just left for college. And what's the first thing I did was I sold everything I bought when I sold the company. And I moved into an apartment in Boston. It's not like I have, you know, I mean. Jeff Dudan (37:20.564) Mm-hmm. Jeff Dudan (37:31.978) Did you? Stacy Madison (37:34.994) Oh, please. I didn't move back to the shithole with the rice in the tub. But I'm in a very, I'm in a very nice brownstone in Boston and I have a place in New York and Miami and so it's, you know, it's very nice, but it's more, um, you know, where I want to be now. Cause you'll see this because when your kids leave, you'll be like, okay, where am I going? And it's like, it's the same thing. It's what am I do, going to do when I start the company? What am I going to do when I. Jeff Dudan (37:38.947) Yeah, yeah. You might have a doorman. I'm sure. Stacy Madison (38:03.126) sell the company, what am I going to do when my kids leave for school? What am I, it's like, everybody has this, everybody goes through it and everybody has their coping mess mechanism with how they handle it. And I think for mine, it's just traveling and spending time in, you know, other places and, and, and if I can, taking my kids to poverty stricken nations, because it's the best thing for them. Jeff Dudan (38:26.854) Yeah, I mean a couple of like it one of the big things for me is what kind of example do I want to set for my kids your Well, your girls are freshmen in college now. So in 2006 there were what three four years old when you sold the business and what Stacy Madison (38:41.982) Yeah, and then they were nine or 10 when we went to Asia. Jeff Dudan (38:46.022) Yeah, so what a great opportunity like you've got them you've got them they're not tied up in sports or whatever they chose to do and You know you just you have options because you you know one thing you have when you have money You have some options, right? The world is is full of options and uh, so so what a great, you know, what a great opportunity to do that now You went back now you're so what's another interesting thing here. So i'm going to say one thing about the exit I shared this with you previously, but not on the show here. My investment bank told me after I sold the business, nobody gives their employees this much of an exit. They said, you're going to regret doing this. Nobody does this. And I had nine people that had been with me 20 years and I had a call center. And, you know, we, we gave something to everybody down to the, to the last person standing, even some contractors that have been with us, 10 99s that have been with us for a while, uh, just because I felt that it was the right thing to do and, uh, I mean, you were younger than I, when you sold, but I was 50 and I'm like, I'm going to go again and I need a good reputation. And I want people to say. If you do something with this guy, it's worth doing because he's not going to tell you one thing and do something else at the end of the day, which I think is a lot of times people do it because greed jumps up and it's like, wow, that's a lot of money to give away. I could, you know, I could do something with that, but, and, and I heard that, I mean, you did the same thing. You have 300 employees. Stacy Madison (40:22.462) Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of those, most of those were, um, subcontracted through an agency. Um, and so, you know, our, we gave away a huge chunk of money and I do not regret any one penny that any person got. Um, never. Jeff Dudan (40:31.349) Mm-hmm. Jeff Dudan (40:46.09) That was my question. That was my question. Do you regret any of it? Stacy Madison (40:49.61) Never. And honestly, I now I'm in, I started a company again. I started B Ball Bars and, and even companies I've been involved in before then, the people I worked with at the Peter chip company have come with me and, and, you know, and some of them did well and some of them did not do well. And, and I was like, I feel so bad. I feel so bad. And I met you quit your job. And I'm not Jeff Dudan (40:55.04) Yes. Stacy Madison (41:18.11) I did it because I did it myself. I made my own decisions. You don't have to be that, feel responsible in that sense. But then I started Be Bold and I asked again and guess what? Those same people are by your side and we love working together. And we love working together. And even though it's hard, we're like, we're going to make this fucking work. I don't care that we don't, we don't care that there's a damn pandemic. It's just like having another fire or another microburst. Jeff Dudan (41:29.674) That's exactly right. Yeah. Jeff Dudan (41:37.888) Yeah. Stacy Madison (41:47.882) Right? Let's just get through it and how, what are we going to do? And when are we going to pivot? When are we going to, you know, but I don't regret giving away any of the money. And we even people, we went and found people and handed them wads of cash. Because that's what that's all that they could take. And so we went into like neighborhoods and found them because the money that we were giving to one particular dirt bag that they worked for, we knew would never get to them. Jeff Dudan (42:14.55) That's right. Yeah. Well, it's rare to do, but also how much, you know, we go through our whole life trying to find that small group of people that we can truly trust. And I know you found that in, you know, you got married, you went through a divorce, but like, you still like, but I still, I'll roll with you on this deal. Stacy Madison (42:35.17) There was never, ever, ever, through all that we went through, there was never a moment that I doubted that, um, you know, I mean, when we decided to leave the business, we left, right? But there was like, we were for the most part in the life or the growth of the company, especially during the hockey stick phase, we were equally committed. We had, um, Like that was our first born. You're not going to leave your kid, right? So that was our first born with and you know, we didn't have kids and that was so that was for us Just Assumed and I know a lot of people have partnerships and they don't work out and you know Well, if you don't have that same level and yet and you're at risk that it won't work out Jeff Dudan (43:30.791) So now the kids are off and I don't know exactly when you started Be Bold but these are awesome. And I love the name because one of my things that I do talks about is speaking a bold and powerful future into existence. So the word bold is a big part of what I do so I want to know, like I'd love to know when you chose to brand this, like why did you do Be Bold? Be Bold: How a Juice Bar Snack Became Her Next Mission Stacy Madison (43:38.574) Thank you. Stacy Madison (43:54.763) Mm-hmm. Um, well, we, you know, if you were to ask me, like, what's my bold? I think like I, you know, what does it stand for B O L D, right? For me, it's be yourself outside of your comfort zone, little by little, do it again. Jeff Dudan (44:24.115) Oh man. Stacy Madison (44:25.694) And I get that honestly from my children. Cause as adults, we look at children and we expect them to walk into a room with people on the soccer team and they don't know anyone. We expect them to do all this shit outside their comfort zone. Well, I don't know why we forget to do that when we're adults. So be yourself outside your comfort zone, which is really, you're pushing yourself. little by little, and then just keep doing that again. And so for me, that's bold. You know, and I know, you know, so I know we had beforehand spoken a little bit and you asked me a question that I really had to think about. You had asked if I had one sentence to make an impact on someone's life, what would that be? And it's a great question, because I'm like, first of all, you have to accept the fact that maybe you did have an impact on some people's lives in a positive way. Jeff Dudan (45:16.214) Yes. Stacy Madison (45:24.978) And so I would say believe in your vision and take action with boldness. Jeff Dudan (45:33.49) leave in your vision and take action with boldness. 100%. That's wonderful. That is awesome. Jeff Dudan (45:44.035) Yeah. So do you have the same trajectory with this new brand? Or where are you with the B-Bolt bars? Stacy Madison (45:50.434) So we are selling 100% online now. We have a handful of other little places. You're welcome. I know you had two of them for lunch today. Get you hooked. So we're selling totally online and you can go to bboldbars.com. You can use code STACY. Jeff Dudan (45:54.378) Okay. And by the way, thank you for sending some over. They saved my life twice this week when I couldn't get lunch. I did. Stacy Madison (46:19.67) Yeah, whatever. But most importantly, I'm on Instagram at Stacey, at underscore Stacey Madison, or Be Bold Bars is also the handle. Or it's all, it's very easy to find. But we do, we sell online and we did that, we pivoted out of the grocery stores during COVID. Because of the pandemic, we really took a hard hit. We had launched a month before we, purchased all this inventory, we got into all these stores, we delivered all the product, we manufactured enough so that we had enough to restock, and then all the stores shut down. So we had three years of trying to figure out what we're gonna do, and now we decided we're gonna take the same money that we were investing in the grocery, and we're gonna put it into online. We're gonna see how we can do with this. It's a very different concept. I'm not used to... No, I'm not. I don't have very many followers. Should that be my identity? I'm 58 years old. I'm like, if I'm talking to my niece about followers, I'm like, gee, how do you get so many? Jeff Dudan (47:25.438) Really? Well, I mean... Yeah! Well, I've got... Jeff Dudan (47:36.246) Yeah. Yeah, one of my most commonly used phrases is, how do I post this? I don't know how to use these things, you know? Yeah, but... Stacy Madison (47:46.082) How do I pose this? Yeah, you gotta surround yourself with a bunch of real young people. Jeff Dudan (47:50.45) You do, you do, but they're out there. Like there's creatives and they love this stuff and they live in it. So, you know, you just, you be the star and you let them press the buttons and I think you're gonna be just fine. So, you're building now. Stacy Madison (47:55.732) Yeah. Stacy Madison (48:00.074) Hahaha. Stacy Madison (48:05.438) So can I tell you, so Be Bold started in the juice bar. And there were all of these, we were selling all of the bars, all the different types of bars, and everybody always asked, which one tastes the best? Which one tastes the best? Eh, you're kinda hard pressed to answer that about the bar category. And so went into the back in the kitchen and we mixed together nuts, nut butters, chia, little bit of wildflower honey, and we mixed it, we pressed it, we packed it, and we chilled it. Jeff Dudan (48:10.899) Yes. Stacy Madison (48:35.134) And that is how they were born. And so, so that's kind of where it started. It wasn't any, you know, oh, we're going to go launch a product. We're going to make up our, we're going to, so we, so we had the product then, and then we had to go and figure out how to make it just like the Peaches. Jeff Dudan (48:50.406) Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. It starts with the flavor. And I'm not just saying this because you're on. That's probably the best tasting bar I've ever had. And I didn't intend to eat two. I meant to eat one. And it went too fast. I said, I've got to have another one. But, you know, live a little. Stacy Madison (48:59.147) Yeah, good. Stacy Madison (49:08.95) It's great, all you had, you had nut butter, you had some nuts, you had all these things that you wouldn't have gone to your cabinet and said, I'm hungry, I'm going to pull out these five or six ingredients. Jeff Dudan (49:18.726) Yep. Now, and it's funny thing is, it's like I read the ingredients. I'm like, I love, I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. And I'm like, this is going to be fantastic. And it was, and it really was. So look, we've both, you know, we both lived without money. And now we've lived with money. And all things being equal, I prefer the latter. But now building a company with resources. You've got resources now, you gotta be careful with what you do, you gotta look at it objectively and say, all right, yeah, I can fund this, but should I fund it and that kind of thing. Are you making different decisions about be bold than you had to make? Or can you find that you can accelerate faster? Or I think, you know, what is Daymond John says, the power of broke, right? I mean, sometimes you don't make the best decision, you can get sloppy if you're overfunded. And just be like, well, let's try that with that hundred thousand or let's try that with that. And if it doesn't work out, it's not going to kill you. But that's a, that's a trap to fall into. How are you, how are you like making decisions? Are you that, are you disciplined around that kind of stuff? As you're building Be Bold. Building a Startup With Resources: Discipline, Strategy, and Sales Focus Stacy Madison (50:12.395) Yeah. Stacy Madison (50:27.251) awesome. Jeff Dudan (50:43.662) Uh oh. We froze. You're froze. Can you hear me? Jeff Dudan (50:56.382) I don't know if you can hear me, but you're froze on my screen. Jeff Dudan (51:23.053) Oh, well, she dropped out. Let me see if she comes back in. Jeff Dudan (51:52.47) I'll do the ending right now. Jeff Dudan (51:58.294) Again, I am Jeff Duden and we are Homefront Brands. This has been Stacey Madison, founder of Stacey's Pita Chips. This has been an amazing hour. We're so thankful that you were on with us today. And again, Homefront Brands is simply building the world's most responsible franchise. Stacy Madison (52:13.738) franchise. Jeff Dudan (52:16.315) Uh oh. Stacy Madison (52:16.602) Uh oh. He's back. Sorry. Sorry. Did he say it that way? Uh, no. Jeff Dudan (52:20.506) You froze. I don't know if that was where that was. But we were just getting ready to wrap up. So thank you. Thank you for jumping back. Can you hear me now? Stacy Madison (52:25.638) And you did too. Oh shit. He lost the recording. Yeah, is the recording okay? Jeff Dudan (52:33.87) I think so. Yeah, it's still rolling. So they'll just edit this together. Do you, and I was just getting, I was actually just getting ready to wrap up. But I kind of asked you about, if you have any comments about, yeah. Yeah. Stacy Madison (52:39.208) Okay. Stacy Madison (52:47.59) about being over, about being funded, about having a funded company by the, yeah. So it, um, yeah. So, uh, yeah, you just lose more. I mean, seriously, you lose, you lose more. Uh, you know, um, we, like I'm in the business with my brother. We said, okay, we're going to put in this much money and then COVID hit. And then we had to either close. Jeff Dudan (52:53.077) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (53:00.866) Yeah Stacy Madison (53:18.63) or go revisit that decision. And we looked at COVID, we said, okay, well, this, the pandemic, we can't count that. And so we took what we invested as a loss for that period and we decided to just basically start again. And hopefully someday we'll make back that money. Um, but right now it's, it's, um, uh, it's very hard, you know, not to, oh, I'm just going to do this. I'm just going to, you know, so you have to make your decision in the beginning of how much you're going to go in with, and we habitually make, ask ourselves the question with every decision that we make, is it going to turn into a sale? Stacy Madison (54:15.402) Jeff asks, Stacey, will you do my podcast? And I'm like, well, is it gonna get me more exposure? Is more exposure gonna help sell the product? Sure, right? So... Jeff Dudan (54:25.683) Oh, we have dozens of listeners. Yes, literally dozens. Stacy Madison (54:28.05) Yeah! Stacy Madison (54:32.994) There we go. So you have to ask yourself, no matter how much money you have in or not, you have to ask yourself, is this going, you know, you have to kind of always look toward, is this decision the best decision that you're making for the company? Is it going to turn into the sale? Is it part of the program? So... Jeff Dudan (54:54.654) Well, I promise you that this will be heavily promoted. We'll put dollars behind this. And yes, this will turn into at least one sale shipped to Cornelius, North Carolina. So the answer is yes. But this has been such a fun hour. I was so much looking forward to this and was not disappointed in the least in the time that we got to spend. You're just an incredible inspiration. Stacy Madison (55:05.274) You're gonna buy some. Ha ha ha ha. Jeff Dudan (55:22.658) and your story, it can inform so many people in their journeys. And I really encourage everyone to be bold and inside of what they choose to do. Stacey, thank you so much. Stacy Madison (55:36.074) Thank you so much, Jeff. Take care. Bye bye. Jeff Dudan (55:38.362) All right, see you. Bye. Stacy Madison (55:44.874) Do I do anything? No one do anything. Jeff Dudan (55:46.622) Nah, I'm just gonna hit, I'm gonna hit. 

Hire Smart & Grow a Successful Team | Lou Adler | On The Homefront

August 22, 2025
Brief Summary In this episode of The Homefront, Jeff Dudan sits down with Lou Adler, renowned recruiting strategist, best-selling author, and creator of the Performance-Based Hiring system. They unpack decades of wisdom on hiring the right talent, avoiding bias, and building long-term success by focusing on what truly matters—real performance in real-world environments. From corporate politics to recruiting philosophy, Lou shares bold truths and practical tools that will shift how you think about talent forever. Key Takeaways Hire for performance, not personality. The best predictor of future success is evidence of relevant accomplishments in comparable environments—not interview skills or charisma. Define the job as outcomes, not qualifications. Avoid skills-based job descriptions and focus on key results and performance objectives. Bias is the biggest hiring mistake. First impressions distort decisions. Structure your interviews and delay judgment for at least 30 minutes. Assessment tools confirm, not predict. Use tools like Predictive Index at the end—not the start—of the hiring process to validate strong candidates. Team skills are proven through history. Look for patterns in how candidates have been repeatedly invited into and succeeded on diverse teams. Think long-term: Hire for the anniversary date, not the start date. Don’t make strategic hiring decisions based on tactical factors like comp or convenience. FEATURED QUOTE “Don’t make long-term career decisions using short-term data.” TRANSCRIPT From Plant Manager to Performance Hiring Pioneer: Lou Adler’s Career Journey lou_adler (01:22.02) jeff thank you very much for inviting me i look forward to chatting with you today lou_adler (02:07.06) well the journey actually is a weird journey because i didn't hope to become a recruiter ever thought of doing that when i was quite young thirty thirty two years old i was running a manufacturing company hated my group resident he and i argued and he actually hired me for that job but i didn't like him and i was a young kid and yelled and screamed at each other every time he showed up every other week so i started using recruiters at the time and after about six months to a year i said you know i think i can't deal with this i'm going to look for another job but maybe i'll start with the recruiter they started telling he wanted to do that and it sounded pretty interesting i gave my notice and it was a six month notice so it was not and they tried to bring me back and gave me the track but i didn't want to work with that guy so that really was the catalyst for leaving but as soon as i became a recruiter i realized that hiring was screwed up and this is nineteen seventy eight screwed up managers did know what they're looking for candidates to know what they wanted cloth it was a superficial and simple area how we found candidates was kind of hodge podge and it's still kind of screwed up forty five years later but i realized hiring could be a business process if you followed a certain set of rules and that's what became performance based hiring a sequence of steps that you follow each and every time and if you do that you'll actually will hire excellent people but it starts with how find work but that's the short take on it i just quit and i've sometimes thought that was a dumb decision do but at seventy six it might still have been a dumb decision but it was a decision i made forty five years ago so it's kind of too late to do anything about it but that's kind of the journey how i got there which is kind of a weird journey but that's so be it that's what it was Leaving a 300-Person Team for a Cubicle: Betting on Yourself in Recruiting lou_adler (04:11.74) that's good jeff that's a real good question from your audience point of view i started using so i was running the manufacturing company three hundred people on thirty years old so i was on a good track um and i knew that i could continue it i did not like the corporate politics there was a lot of bsgoes and i didn't like the group president be other people i really like to executives but there's still a lot of corporate politic and said i don't need this so i knew as a recruiter this one guy that i was working with whom my wife met because i was their biggest client he just lived in his palatial mansion palatial mansion uh and my wife says hey why not you become a recruiter is my wife was telling me this and so she supported a decision to leave in december of nineteen seventy seven i walked from the corner office with a company of three hundred people reporting to me to this little cup of cubical and i was a recruiter on my own and i kind of want to stoop decision at so i actually did but i knew i had planned six months of income that i could pull it off and but right away i got into it i really know i can actually do this and there was a thing that can appisode i change the process so yes i was fearful the first six months i thought it was going to fail my wife totally supported the decision and i've been married i met her in nineteen sixty and were still married so she supported one hundred percent i had a little four year old son at the time and never saw him so there's a lot of things that went on that i said you know i got to do this so when i looked back in retrospect at it forty plus years later it was the right decision because it gave me a different kind of life being my own boss not dealing with the corporate politics and that person in particular even if i got rid of that person which that was an option they said he will give you another division at a different place where he is not the group president i still had to deal with the corporate so i said no i can't do it that's but so but i was self confident enough to know that i could find something else if this didn't work out as running a manufacturing company at thirty two three hundred people i could find another job it wasn't what i wanted to do but i knew that was always an option so i took a risk and i had my wife's supports and it worked out real well lou_adler (06:30.86) right Why Competency-Based Hiring Falls Short Without Job Context lou_adler (08:13.68) well let me kind of go through the point so let me kind of discredit competency based hiring just in general when i'll give you a start everybody has certain set of competencies results are good team skills intelligent problem solver but without the context of the job it's kind of meaningless so i always say okay what's the most important competency you want results are in god ay what does i always ask what does that look like on the job what does that competency look like on the job oh they got to deal with these kind of people a complish these kinds of tasks fine i'll find people who are competent and motivated to do that but if you just make this generic competence s the likelihood that they'll fit with that specific environment in your situation is remote so that's why i don't like generic competence it's got to be related to the content of the job in the actual work itself i am very resultsoriant in a certain situation i love the job running this manufacturing facility with three hundred people i did not like the job when that group president came down and complained and said he should do it his way and so i'm not doing it your way fire me you don't like my way but just leave me alone so he demotivated me so even was perfectly competent to do that at that point in time i was de motivated for forty eight hours when he left for two weeks i was fine and then he came back and i was motivated again so i think there's certain situations of that put people despite their competency to be unsuccessful if you're a jerk as a hiring manager well you better hire someone you can deal with jerks now someone who's competent to motivate to do it i mean that's just the reality of it so now let me give you a story of the whole performance based hiring process so this happened and probably i'm goin to say nineteen ninety five as a recruiter then i had the good fortune of being introduced a number of different business groups that i could present my methodology for hiring i didn't call it performance based hiring at that time but that's what it was so i remember i gave a presentation to a up of mid sized company presidents and these were companies five million to fifty million say and a couple of weeks later and it was great because i would get in front of them and tell them how to do this so a couple of weeks later i get a call from one of the people present of a company that made wood products i don't exactly remember what the wood products were but he calls me said lou at the presentation what were the two questions you said you must ask the candidates before you hire anybody and i said well it doesn't really mat The Two Questions That Can Transform Your Interviews (With a Walkthrough) lou_adler (10:43.6) what the two questions are i got to know the job i just let's just tell me about the job as i don't have time just tell me the two questions and he was getting really acgrvate just tell me the two questions that i can't just they're meaningless without knowing what you're looking for i said why are you so insistent on the two questions and he said the candidates in the hall way i said ah that's a different issue i said so here's what i want you to do i want you to walk through your manufacturing facility and it was making wood products i want you to walk through the facility and when you get to a specific problem in that he was looking for v p operations to run it and probably a ten or twelve million dollar company hundred hundred twenty people i said i want you to stop at every cation i said so so i said tell me one of the problems he said the way we lay out raw material was terrible i said fine hen you get to the area of raw material stacked up and mislaid and poorly documented i want you to stop and ask the candidate these two questions the first question is if you were to get this job how would you solve this problem and spend five minutes eight minutes on getting his thoughts about it but more important ask this question next if you were to get this job or how have we have you ever solved a problem similar to that tell me all about it and spend another ten eight to ten minutes on the answer that solution then do that for three or four other big problems you have how would you solved the problem what haf you accomplish its most related spend twenty minutes in each of those areas and then call me when you're done so this is kind of i think it was ten clock in the morning uh he calls me about two o'clock he said done we walked through at two hours candidate was great at telling me how we do it but he wasn't very good at doing anything similar so i perceive him to be a good consulting type but not an hands on operational guy wanted to come out and i'll give you a search for the v p operations but so the three things that you got to know the job you got to ask candidates what are they accomplished related to those performance objectives of the job and how would they solve the problem if they get it that's performance based in defined the job as a series of performance objectives not a list of skills competencies and academics it's what people do with what they have that makes some successful so focus on what they have you think you need a result joined competency well it's got to be results or to solve the problem you got not result or an to solve different problems this guy was definitely results orient the consultant guy but he wasn't hands on guy to solve that specific problem in that set in that environment so i think it's tying lou_adler (13:13.52) skills and competencies to the real needs and the context of the job that's performance based hire Assessment Tests: Confirming vs. Predicting Talent lou_adler (13:35.06) let me i got to tell another now i got to tell another story that one of the big dominant assessment test twenty years ago was profiles international gave a detailed i q test and a personality test which is very similar predictive index jim sur basket was the present of the company he said lou if you say something nice about my assessment in the second edition of hio with your head i will have each of my reps and he had six hundred or eight hundred reps by three copies and that a copy of that book to our customers that was a pretty good deal just to give you a sense i won't tell you what i said about it in the book it was semi positive when the book came out it was number one amazon best seller and it's not because it was a great book because i made the deal with jymserbasket the present profiles international what i put in the book was assessment test for the final three candidates are perfect but don't use it to screen out it's a confirming indicator not predict indicator and he said and i said i'll put that in a book he said that's good enough i'll put that in a book which i did said profile as the one i would recommend for the final three he said but i won't make any money by selling three tests i make money by selling two hundred tests for that same job and he said in lou i have a jet personal jet that i travel around the world on and you're driving a little whatever it was it was was just you know it wasn't a hot car little a normal price being m w but so he always he passed away unfortunate but he was god friend but that's what i believe about assessments they're not predictive indicators they're confirming indicators and yes i give it a hundred percent of the time to find a list but i don't give it to um applicants because they meant i don't want to exclude a good candidate when you think hiring as a system the system is i want to hire a great person not want to do an assessment test to screen out week candidates i want to i want to hire the best person so yes it has its place but it has to be at the end of the process at the beginning of the process and that's a fundamental shift that most r people don't recognize hey yeah i've given it to people for c f o for publicly trading companies i said rich you got remember one guy who is really super senior guy half a million dollar job i said you got to take the silly test that's everybody gets it but so i knew the guy was good and i said just i just take the damn test now the i q test is quite predictive i have always given an i q test but it's still so while it is a useful test that i agree with it i would still give it lou_adler (16:04.94) in the sequence of steps it's got to be when the candidate clearly sees this is a job i want and i'm willing to go through the rigmarole of getting it so you got to be careful about the decision from the point of view and whom you want to hire lou_adler (16:23.42) well so so let me give you another story about predictive index is a competency based test and it's probably the most well known they've added a n i q component which i totally support but i still think about this so we had a big client and this was in the nineties avery international a big company and it turned out that all our candidates had to take the predictive index personality test um and ninety percent of our candidates pass that test their candidates only fifty percent pass the test because our focus is on if a person has accomplished a comparable job and an comparable environment successfully how could they not pass the test it's what people do with what they have not what they have that matters not everybody who passes the test can do the work but ninety percent of people who can do the work will pass the test because it's it's pure logic and that really kind of says it's a confirming indicator not a predictive indicator it's now that's certain people so now go back every now and then you'll find a candidate who doesn't meet the right personality profile even though you've interviewed him based on performance then you got to say well and i remember when canada as very soft spoken for a big director of a cost accounting job implementing a big manufacturing process multi plant and he was very soft spoken i didn't think he would do well in the job but then i started really doing some due diligence and he had worked with the u a w he had worked with it he had worked with finance and worked with manufactr ing people he was in the financial department and implemented some very complicated cost systems and very difficult manufacturing environments his soft spoken nature allowed him to collaborate with everybody without in general if you get a real hard nosed person and manufac the egos getting away this guy was collaborative work well people like in the union like them so in some cases your mind of what you think is a good person and good personality might not be i by doing that due deli and with the kind and checking references was the right personality and yet he didn't interview well who's kind of soft spoken you wouldn't have thought well but his results spoke for themselves so you got to be a little bit careful when you do these things that's why i said if the chiefs cam parable results and comparable situations and the personality or something doesn't seem right you got to kind of do your due diligence you don't always have to hire the person but you got to do your due diligence so it offers another series of questions you can ask to insure you're hiring the right person lou_adler (19:04.56) yeah How Bias Sabotages Hiring—and How to Eliminate It with Structure lou_adler (19:09.08) okay so let me make the general statement is bias is the number one cause of hiring mistakes we tend to like people in their first impression and when we like somebody we just relax and we start selling the person on the job we stop listening and we discount bad answers and we elevate good answers or ignore wrong answers we do all that stuff when we don't like somebody we go out of our way to insure the person answers that protesans correctly so it's almost self ordained whom you're going to hire based on first impressions and it's all wrong totally wrong so what i do to minimize bias and it happened i say accidentally in my first search assignment it was for a plant manager in the automotive industry first search assignment nineteen seventy eight hiring manager gave me a list of skills experience and competencies and academics in this case it was handwritten happened to know the co because he was some one i had worked with in the past and remember i gave six months notice so i kind of knowing i was going to become a recruiter right kind of i had a number of assignments ready to go once they started but i looked at this job description skills experience and competence and i said mike that's not a job description that's a person description what do you want the person to do to be successful and we again we walked around the plant we found five or six things to turn it around inventory issues process doesn't matter what those stuff stuff and i found a person who could do that work so defining a job is a series of performance of jectives which i call a performance base job description is the beginning of stopping bias and the only dis ion you make is is this person competent to motivated to do that work in my environment now that's what you have to prove so i tend to say i think it's better if you have a phone screen before you bring the canada inside just to get to know each other and ask the kind of he or she s accomplished things like that so then when you do meet the person number on the phone kind of minimize it but the candidate and it's kind of a scripted phone screen if you've got those oments kind of i don't like the person and not hard to but it looks like the person is pretty good so you're focused on their performance not their personality and that's really the key is has this person accomplished work needed to be done obviously the decision kenthis person fit with my organization is a critical opponent but obvious say as that at the end at the end of the interview i ask yourself is this kennedy's first impression going to help or hinder that person's on the job performance but ask it at the end of the interview when he's person's gone not being biased by it that's hard but we have a scripted interview that goes through that how do you put biased in the parking lot and right Sherlock Holmes Interviewing: Proving Team Skills Without Guesswork lou_adler (21:38.82) but one of my first presentations ever first presentations ever was to a business group where the president of in and out burger was there now if your family with him now burgher and where do you live okay well in and out burger is a big burger chain on the west coast uh okay at the time they only had sixty stores no ot three hundred i mean goin world right now but i knew them when they had sixty stores and i just said this business group the biggest way to control bias is don't make a decision for thirty minutes bite your tongue bleed asked these questions for thirty minutes and it was just some basic work history review and biggest accomplishment he calls me up a week or two later i says i love that you want to do it c f o search he unfortunately the president that a burgher at that tient got passed away in an airplane crash and i was my biggest client at the time so i cried for a month but he was just a great guy that is also my biggest client but that was not was the personal issue that i was said in by so the point being is s bias is critical you do have to control it starts by looking at objective criteria that defines on the job performance throw personality until the end after your interview you can say can this person do this work given the situation and many times you'll discover that people who have a great extraverted friendly personality start digging into their accomplishments they're superficial on the other hand you find some little bit quiet a little bit these they introverted might not might not be they just kill everybody gets nervous in an interview it's important and at the end of the interview discover persons actually better than they are and this the thing i found a third of the people get worse you thought they're great now than at that great and a third of the people get better you i got to hire them but they get better and a third oth people stay the same so ou just got to put it in the park and lot and it's hard of all the things i train it's hard to do but it's critical to do but if you build a performance pace job description to finding the work with a serious performance objectives and wait thirty minutes using a scripted interview you got a chance to eliminate bias there's other ways to it you started lou_adler (24:08.62) well an i think that's all superficial i am i can't judge if i like you are not in the thirty forty minutes you're not the same but i can judge and if you look at proxies for culture intensity of the organization pased to the organization how decisions are made all kind of give you a sense of your culture so when i do cultural fit that's a critical issue it want to minimize it but looking at the person making a personal judgment that's not how you do it you got to be a little bit more discipline and scientific so so i say hey jeff you know we had a pretty intense organization to walk through the biggest accomplishment you had where you really had to deal under pressure nd i want to understand how you dealt with it so that's one way to do it is to map your organizations culture and see if that person has accomplishment and has been successful in that kind of comparable organization i mean that's really the issue but from a team standpoint i remember this is probably eight or ten years ago a twenty three year old kid brilliant young man he was in london over there he said lo i got this guy for a thirty five real old guy i was sixty five at the time and i don't know if he's a jerk or not and i don't know this kid is twenty two and he looks sixteen so i said calamy said here's the way you determined team skills just ask him about the teams he's been on what's the biggest team you've managed how do you get on that team who else was on the team what happened as a result after that team and if you look at the progression of a person's team growth and skills and collaboration over you'll know if they have good team skills persons flat and has never worked with anybody else before year after year in different companies don't hire because there's a clue that they don't have good team skills but on the other hand if you have somebody on the team ask this person to we'd like you to be on this team to lead this effort and then at that effort another group says he we want jeff on this team and that team you got whether you like the person or not that person has got good team skills and this i call it the sherlock holmes evidence based interview you don't have to make the personal decision yourself other people already made that decision so look for that evidence there interview have other people treated this person for team skills and all of a sudden you'll know an you won't be shocked when they come out persons just like they thought they would but if you make a personal decision it's unlikely you're going to be right Hire for Grit, Not Glamour: Why Overachievers Beat Naturals lou_adler (27:49.2) i think it's it's different hiring someone who's right out of school different hiring someone right out of school so uh in general i i am a cynic i don't trust anything i don't trust any generic statistical validation so i just now the reason is because i give one year guarantee and i gave i was the first contingency for him in the world to give one year guarantee i don't want to do on an o ive the money back or do it over again that's a waste of time so i take it very religiously if the person has accomplished stuff comparable to what you need and consistently over time and ere comparable i'm saying i'd give that person a shock if that person has learned quickly and thrown in over the head and survived i'd give that person a shock but i wouldn't give a test of that i want to see specific evidence of that thing i'm not sure that athletics is the great example of that maybe it is if you got someone who sit on the bench and then was thrown in and work real hard to even sit on the bench then and maybe that that's where i would demonstrate grip not somebody's naturally gifted not somebody who's naturally got a great personality those people get it easy it's people who have aren't the best athletes that still achieve success that don't have the best personality that still achieve success that became the leaders despite their flaws i would probably give that person more credit than someone who has got all the gifts and somehow leverage of those gifts that thought to me that the person with the gifts isn't good so i don't want to say that but i would just be concern and that wouldn't give me the confidence that i could give a person a one year guarantee that's what i call in when hiring win when hiring hire for the anniversary date not to start meaning a year from that and i look good and the canada still says i want to be had this job that's hard to do on both sides so but it's but i'm a cynic and again i'm an engineer i mean you mentioned that briefly i don't trust anything this thing's got to work so i'm a bit of a cynic and so i see all these things and i've been kicked out of a lot of h r com i i don't want to deny that because i see the world differently i see hey you know this is a serious decision on both sides and there are ways to do it right but when you use statistical measures to do it right and assessment test i don't i think you're missing a forest for the trees but that's my opinion The One Question Every Employer Must Ask Before Making an Offer lou_adler (30:21.8) well jeff let me ask you this if we could put a nice offer package together would at least be interested getting serious about it to test jeff how would you how would you know how would you compare our job to other things you're now considering is it one two or three jeff on a scale of one to tend how would you rank our job in comparison to everything else you're looking at what would it take to be number one on your list so all of a sudden i'm uncovering what it would take jeff now and then if you re making of jeff we're thinking of making you an offer talked about that we've already forget the money forget the money do you want the job remember we talked about the criteria that drives on the job success the work itself do you really want to do this work our gonta work with this team you want to work at our company you like the work life balance is just as satisfying to tell me about why you want this job at fran for for the money and jeff i'm going to tell you we're not going to make you the offer if you don't if this isn't clear to you but i told you two weeks ago when we started this journey that if we made you an offer we're gon talk about all these other factors other than the money so you is this a job you really want of rent from tell me why and how it compares to other things you're looking at all of those are tests hey jeff if we could put an offer together by the end of the week when could you give us when could you give us your notice when do you think it could start so right there i said so if i say jeff you know we've been talking this is the second round of interviews and we could put a real nice offer package together when do you think it could start and if you can't give me a specific date you don't want this job it's all about the money because if you do want the job after two meeting i know you've thought about when you could start but i got to think about it we screwed up so that's what testing is all about it's just like in closing are you serious about this how would you compare uncovering all those issues because oftentimes at these miners i didn't know about the insurance plan i can't get my kids on the insurance men for your under twenty days and i can't take that job i mean it's so i lost i mean literal there's not one thing in that book or the thing i talk about that didn't cost me money i make six even eight hundred placement or deal with other people working place over a thousand search assignments you make a lot of screw ups but and you hopefully you avoid them the next time so that's what really it is as you make mistakes and if you follow the rules you'll make fewer mistakes you'll still make them but you'll make fewer ones and you make better hiring decisions lou_adler (32:51.92) yeah yeah absolutely lou_adler (33:04.14) but then the real question f though is ask what would it take to be number one on your list whatever number add a number to that and say what because they'll ell you all why they don't like it lou_adler (33:18.34) you're on home and make another offer to somebody right lou_adler (33:35.26) well i don't know that that's what it said it said sometimes great hires or great candidates aren't great hires so that's and the reason is if i ask hiring managers and we've given training to thousands of hiring managers for forty thirty forty years it's not hard to do that man when you've been here at so many years but i said what's a great hire gets results work with a team fits the culture reliable has all these personal attributes that you want that's what that's what a great hire they achieve results in your situation then i say what's a great candidate's got to have ten years of this skills like this these competencies those aren't predictive the skills you want also screen out people because the a lot of people who have those skills a different mix of skills can still do the job but then we interview candidates based on they have a good have those skills they agree with to go forward and do they make a good interview presentation well that's a great candidate but that doesn't mean that canada would be a great higher sometimes you have people a little bit nervous who aren't great candidates sometimes you have candidates who have a differ mix of skills and experiences so you now excluded people could do become a great higher because you've defined the selection criteria improperly so that's really what i said great candidates often don't make great hiers because you've screened some of the best people out to have a different mix of skills and experiences and who aren't necessarily the best interviewers in the world interviewing isn't a predictive sign i mean it's right there we've talked about bias first impression determined and how many people interview properly very few that's why i when i deal with it no i'm gonna be there when you're in your interview i'm goin to show you how to interview properly but i truly do it from a business stamp and i don't want to do this search over again and i don't want to find extra candidates when i know these ones are good so that's my cynical approach to it lou_adler (36:12.54) so you're talking about finding them or interviewing them The Franchisee Fit Test: How to Hire for Early-Stage Entrepreneurship lou_adler (36:19.7) well let's just say interviewing fining them heard i'd probably want to do that through referral basis but interviewing them so so let me kind of go two ways i would ask the that franchise owners define the work as a series of performance objectives what do you want this person to accomplish after the first year you're gonna have twenty new accounts you're gonna build a team of two or three sales reps whatever it is you define the work as a secret of steps and clearly performance objective then interview have you ever done complished anything like that so go through the questioning how what have you accomplishes most related how then you asked the other question the problem solving question is how would you do this given our set of circumstances and i want good clear answers but just as important is can this person handle three to six months or ten months or twelve months before there's a lot of income coming through i brought a lot of recruiters on board who had all the capacity to do it but it does take three to six months to ramp up before they're making money and if they didn't have money and the support of their family and wife or whatever it was they were going to fail and most of them were competent could do it but they realized the money pressure became the issues why they had to leave so that was the other thing i always looked at when we brought in a recruiter who came from corporate did that person have enough money to handle it for six months or a year making a low income if they got to year they could go through year one by year two they were making pretty good money but the first year was pretty lean so i think it's kind of a similar mind set there is they've got to be competent and motivated to do it then they have to have the financial resources to do it as the family support to do it without the family support and financial they're going to fail now it's my good response without thinking about it jeff lou_adler (41:41.18) well there's two phases to that question given three minutes over a view of your process i can't determine if it's any good or not so let me just take that off the table so that i don't know can our process help in some way in a process that you implement there's absolutely no question about we helped other people en franchises to pull that off um but if i just had to give you the glib response again based on what you said and how many franchises do you have jeff just total number ten fifty hundred five hundred okay so here's what i would say now this is the engineer behind me i would want to meet the best ones you've got and say okay what do they do that made them the best then i'm going to try to say okay can i duplicate that in finding other people like that rather than start from scratch i don't know if this starting from scratch and that whole thing works i don't know you've seen enough people so i can't and that's why i said but i at once i understand okay let me understand what it takes to be successful and why have these people been successful that gives me a starting point i said okay now what is the methodology in which i could find people and bring them through and design the process so i would not design the process until i figured out what it took to be successful and why those people are successful then i define a process to find those people and make sure that i get the best ones in the process so to me the process is the last thing you do you got to figure out what's the strategy or the lot of these people where do you find him you get through furls can you write a job posting these recruiters i mean is a whole host of ways to find them but i don't know what success looks like so i can't answer that your process is the right process so sorry for that political response that said no i can't answer it lou_adler (43:43.72) uh no i say the issue that i say to people is that hiring should be a long term decision too many folk people focus on what getting that person started on day one and all this criteria what's the comp what's this what's that but the real truth is people are successful based on intrinsic motivators do they really want to do that work is the circumstances is a long term so again that goes back to your question so i think if you're going to make a lot of so this as i said to the candidate many years ago i stayed all the ti don't make long term career decisions using short term data understand the job itself what the challenges are and hire people motivating compend to do it and if you're candidate say is this a job i want for the long term not for the start date package because if you want it for the start date package the probability is low that it's going to be successful so that's why i say think long term don't make strategic decisions using tactical information lou_adler (44:48.9) no i think it's that term higher n when higher higher for the anniversary date not to start date and i think that's the one i would say it's most important too many people focus when they changed changing jobs important decision for the candidate more important than the candy than a company maybe not your but in general company screws up they'll survive canada screws up that's not it's a damaging thing so they got to think long term not short term and i told the candy many years ago don't make long term decisions using short term data he was trying to counter him to take an offer that i presented and he decided not to take it but then he ultimately did take an offer from my client and thank me because the short term to comp wasn't enough the title wasn't good enough but a year later it was clearly superior so i think that's the hard part is getting the information a long term career decisions too important to leave the chance lou_adler (45:50.02) well i think well i'm kind of semi retired so reach out if you want but i probably not gonna do much and i say that semi superficially but it's kind of true but i have a wait wait wait wait wait i have a book called higher with your head if you go to high with your head dot com and i can see behind your back i don't see my book on your bookcase jeff which come on you might want to re modify that you know well you kind of put it up there i see that is it well go to hire your head dot com and join our book club we meet once every four to six weeks and we discuss different topics in the book club you don't have to buy the book to join but you can join that's the best way to connect with my company high with your head dot com join the book club and be part of understanding what it takes to make great career decisions whatever side of the desk were lou_adler (47:11.4) thank you very much everybody thank you jeff jeff_dudan (47:48.385) start your next chapter of greatness and build your dynasty on the home front i will be looking for you and today i am extremely excited to have low adler on the phone with us today and low is the co and founder of the adler group consulting and training from helping companies implement win win hiring programs using his performance based hiring system for finding and hiring exceptional talent more than forty thousand recruiters and hiring managers that's forty thousand have attended his ground breaking workshops over the past thirty years lose the author of the amazon top ten best seller hire with your head and the essential guide for hiring and getting hired louis been featured on fox news and his articles and posts can be found on ink magazine business inside of bloomburgh in the wall street journal welcome lu adler to on the home front today jeff_dudan (48:43.285) oh it's going to be it's going to be great i've spent so much time going through your stuff and hiring and recruiting is a particular passion for mine built businesses over the last thirty years and it's you know i think jim collins talks about who luck right if you get the right people in the right seat you seem to get lucky and good things seem to happen when you have the wrong people in the wrong seats then things go a little bit slower or not at all so i'd love to start with the your background lou anything you'd care to share i know that you you're from new york originally you live in california today went to clark's and got an engineering degree and then your ba from u c l a what would you care to share about your journey early days growing up jeff_dudan (51:08.505) thinking back to that inflection point you're gainfully employed you're highly degreeed you're having success in your career and then you decide to become an entrepreneur and start the adler group how were you were you forced into that decision or was that something were you fearful about it was it something you had been planning or you know when you have to jeff_dudan (53:44.385) yeah there's no shortage of people that would want you to make money for them for sure and yeah you know i look back i have three or four inflection points that i talk about in my journey and building a national brand and then selling it and now creating a couple of national platforms but usually these inflection points they have people people that you care about wife and your son they have an adventure and an opportunity and then they've got some risk of loss and yeah i've found in my life that you always have to give up at least something to try to get something greater so i always interested in in people's journey from that so well that's great so let's talk a little bit about and i think for the benefit of our audience in particular i know that hiring and recruiting particularly when you got a tight job market is absolutely imperative most people do it they bring people in they have an interview and then if they like him they don't they don't not particularly scientific about it and if they if they like them and if seem to have done something similar in the past often times unsophisticated companies they're going to get the job there and it is that is a travesty a lot of times the way that that ultimate shakes out we've used a lot of competency based interviewing and i know that you use you know your system as a performance based system so i'd really like to unpack it a little bit and in thinking about maybe some people some franchise ores or p that are looking at becoming entrepreneurs and becoming franchises you know how are they going to get those first key people and they're gonna impact their business so one of the things that i don't know maybe you could just do a little bit of a overview about performance based hiring and how we need to think about it jeff_dudan (55:36.225) uh uh jeff_dudan (58:20.225) uh h uh jeff_dudan (59:32.825) oh jeff_dudan (01:00:15.665) uh jeff_dudan (01:00:37.045) yeah i'll tell you and that probably avoids a lot of project and long ramps and a lot of training that you've got to do just to see if the person can perform in the role get somebody that can perform from day one so are you a big fan of assessments pre employment assessments are there any that you recommend or you know are they valuable jeff_dudan (01:01:03.365) yes jeff_dudan (01:01:28.245) good deal jeff_dudan (01:03:33.505) it so how heavily though would the hiring decision be weighted upon the results of those tests for the final three candidates is it jeff_dudan (01:03:44.505) yeah jeff_dudan (01:03:53.225) uh jeff_dudan (01:06:11.265) got it that's that's great biases what are the what are the types of biases that generally come into the hiring process and what can you do to minimize those as best as possible jeff_dudan (01:06:32.305) yes jeff_dudan (01:07:37.225) m jeff_dudan (01:08:46.925) yeah jeff_dudan (01:09:06.665) yep north carolina jeff_dudan (01:09:12.105) oh i've had him i've had him jeff_dudan (01:10:25.725) hm jeff_dudan (01:11:05.745) but you do yeah so but at the end of the interview though after the performance pace piece did you say that you spend a couple of minutes maybe on cultural fit or other things that would maybe indicate you know how easy going they are how they re they can are they congenial can you get along with them do you do that kind of stuff or do you do just okay jeff_dudan (01:11:34.185) right jeff_dudan (01:13:38.305) so we've used something called culture index in the past i'm not sure if you're familiar with it or not as an assessment and it provides you nineteen typical profiles of course and everyone there's there's there's interpretation to it that can get down to the fine detail but one of the things on there is kind of an indication of somebody's battery and i found it to be very accurate so you know the indication is so how long can somebody perform you know outside of their personality type in the fulfillment of a job and it kind of goes to energy it kind of goes to grit it kind of goes to perseverance do you look at anything like that that says you know okay i'm looking at this i'm looking at the c v and maybe it's a young person n you know they were on the women's nineteen national championship soccer team they won this they got a black belt and something else they you know got a four point and they were on the you know all of these different things and it looks like this person has the ability to do a lot and accomplish a lot of things to to have competing priorities and be successful within that i mean how much do you look at just share volume of accomplishments or size of accomplishments and kind of assessing mean is it fair to say that that if they've been successful in the past when faced with challenging situations or in competitive environment that they're likely to figure it out here or do you do you do you use that at all jeff_dudan (01:15:11.345) sure jeff_dudan (01:15:18.745) okay yeah jeff_dudan (01:16:13.885) hm jeff_dudan (01:16:35.845) yeah jeff_dudan (01:16:46.705) that's what that meant jeff_dudan (01:17:22.105) got it i love it help me understand this don't make an offer until your one hundred percent sure it will be accepted i sat and thought about that and i couldn't figure out how to do that because technically if i'm talking to the people and i'm talking about the offer i'm making the offer but what what do you mean by that specifically jeff_dudan (01:17:45.885) absolutely absolutely jeff_dudan (01:18:04.765) yeah jeff_dudan (01:19:33.185) right jeff_dudan (01:20:01.325) yeah tell you i'm gonna have o give myself a few points here lou because i ask a lot of those questions that's kind of how i go about it you know those those trial closing questions but you know it's not really even trial closing it's just that that's what makes sense i want to gage hey i always ask at the end of an interview scale i want one to tend how interested are you in this position jeff_dudan (01:20:26.765) yeah jeff_dudan (01:20:31.005) right right right right well that's good i appreciate that a lot that's right i've got him we got him stacking up in here like cord wood so you know i also saw something that was interesting to me it said sometimes your worst candidates can be your best hires jeff_dudan (01:21:06.105) okay sure jeff_dudan (01:22:22.165) yes jeff_dudan (01:22:35.405) yeah yeah easiest past the best best placemen so i imagine you sometimes work with startups but probably only startups that are well funded maybe pe backed something like that if if you were going to help somebody or just you know over a cup of coffee advise maybe somebody who's investing in a franchise business they're going to have five to ten employes but their first couple employes are really crit but these aren't these aren't back businesses these are family people these are corporate refugees these are people that that are really trying to you know really get their first couple of people right what could you you know how would people if they couldn't afford somebody like you what could people do what would be your best advice to to be as good as you possibly could in the hiring process jeff_dudan (01:23:33.605) well i guess it would be interviewing them and placing them okay okay okay jeff_dudan (01:24:29.905) hm jeff_dudan (01:24:38.165) sure jeff_dudan (01:25:18.085) great great well lo well i appreciate that that's a great response so i guess i'll just kind of open it up i mean you know so so let me describe to you really quickly are candidate process so again we're a franchise or and we get our candidates from a variety of sources there's consultant groups in our industry who who reach out to candidates who are maybe out of a job or looking for a new opportunity sometimes the candidates raise their hands sometimes these consultants reach out and tap the candidates on the shoulder and ask them you know say hey i'll advise you on on your career and maybe so they'll give them a personality assessment they'll do and income and needs analysis they'll they'll ask them a series of questions about what they like to do maybe a performance of competency based what have they done in the past what do they like to do and then they'll introduce them to four or five different franchise opportunities and if there's a placement they'll extract a fee from the franchise or for the pleasure so it's kind of a recruiting thing as well and then on the oth side of the house we've got the internet and comprehensive you know websites and landing pages and advertisements and the like to attract candidates to it but generally regardless of the source of the lead we execute about an eight week process about a sixty six day process on average and it starts with education education well it starts with an application from them so first of all we want to do a high level application to make sure that they're qualified the opportunity financially maybe you know credit criminal would just need to look at what the you know what are the basics and it looks like they're satisfied but you also you don't want to create too high high of a hurdle early because you want to get into conversation with these people and then of course there's education about franchising education about the industry we're talking about education about the company home front brands and then and then really down into the business and and over time you know there's a series of hurdles that they go through jeff_dudan (01:27:23.185) financial qualification doing a pro forma legal document review talking to other franchises there's all these it's a very structured process that they go through that culminates with a meet the team or confirmation day where they fly in and with a bunch of other candidates and then after that it's they kind of have to make a decision it's a sales process and we want great candidates and but we've got sales people right and they want to they want to play steals and but it's really important down the road for the quality of the brand that we get the candidates their absolutely the best fit and going to do a good job with the brands and and all of that so i've tried to incorporate different assessments at different points in the process over the years but you know at the end of the day are you really going to eliminate somebody before you get face to face with them you know it's very hard to determine in an on pen setting how hard people are going to work what their heart is what their needs are you know how bad do they want it do they want it as bad as they can breathe or they willing to do the work or you know is it is an itch they scratched and they scratch it and they're not doing the work and i can tell you that you can never predict which candidates are going o be great it or i guess my question i have found that we have not been able to predict which candidates are going to be great for a variety of reasons but do you think in the proces that i described that your methods could help us select better candidates jeff_dudan (01:29:06.305) yes jeff_dudan (01:29:10.805) okay jeff_dudan (01:29:33.625) couple hunt couple couple of hundred right now eh jeff_dudan (01:29:44.505) right jeff_dudan (01:30:47.885) got it jeff_dudan (01:30:52.685) got it well no worries lou is there anything that i should have asked you that i haven't or anything you'd care to share with the audience before we head towards wrapping up jeff_dudan (01:31:55.025) that is a that is a mouthful of truth and i really appreciate it lou you've been incredibly successful if you had one sentence to make an impact in someone's life someone's journey what would you offer them jeff_dudan (01:32:57.865) that's great luke thank thank you for sharing that with us today and so how can people reach out to you if they are interested in talking to you about your services jeff_dudan (01:33:15.385) yeah okay well they can buy a book or two jeff_dudan (01:33:23.825) yeah jeff_dudan (01:33:36.825) look at all those yep jeff_dudan (01:33:55.185) greatly well this has been brilliant and we're very honored that you took the time with us here today i'm sure you've helped a lot of people you certainly helped me re think some of the things that we're doing in our hiring process so really appreciate being on and as always this podcast broad to you by home front brands simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform so reach out to us reach out to lou or go to home front branch dot com get connected with me through linked in or on instagram and we will both be looking for you thank you very much jeff_dudan (01:34:31.225) okay lu take care right

Leadership, Stoicism, and Franchising | Michael O'Driscoll | On The Homefront

August 22, 2025
BRIEF SUMMARY In this episode of The Homefront, Jeff Dudan welcomes back Michael O’Driscoll, President of Franchising and COO at Homefront Brands. A globally respected leader with nearly four decades in franchising, Michael dives deep into what makes a great franchise system—from the foundational elements of a healthy brand to the realities of scaling and the critical role of leadership. Whether you're an emerging franchisor or an aspiring franchisee, this episode is packed with no-nonsense insight and strategic guidance. KEY TAKEAWAYS Franchising is a business model, not an industry. It spans nearly every sector, making standardized definitions of “success” highly contextual. Great franchises start with great assets. The underlying business must be sound, replicable, and unique before it can be franchised effectively. Emerging brands offer upside—with risk. Joining early can yield outsized returns, but only for those who understand the trade-offs and can weather development. Start well, go well. The first 120 days can shape a franchisee’s entire journey. Franchisors must invest in onboarding and early momentum. Human-centered design matters. Franchisees should be at the core of system design, training, decision-making, and feedback loops. Scale happens—or doesn’t—based on leadership. Systems collapse around years 4–6 if foundational investments in people, tech, and culture were skipped. Franchise success = mindset + resilience. The ultimate predictor of success isn’t the system—it’s the people and their character, discipline, and accountability. FEATURED QUOTE “Don’t die wondering. Face the fear and have a go. Regret is a very destructive thing—and I don’t want to live with it.” TRANSCRIPT Global Franchise Wisdom: Meet Michael O'Driscoll of Homefront Brands Jeff Dudan (00:01.038) Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Homefront. I am Jeff Duden, your host. And today, Michael O'Driscoll, President of Franchising and Chief Operating Officer of Homefront Brands, but really one of the most storied and respected people in the franchise industry today, franchising all over the world. Welcome Michael. Michael ODriscoll (00:22.199) Thanks, Jeff. Good to be here again. Jeff Dudan (00:23.986) Yes, absolutely. So for listeners who have been with us for a while, Michael Odrisko and I did a show. It's one of the early shows. If you want to go back and reference it, some incredible life lessons, stoicism, philosophies, and really just an incredible journey. So we'll point you back there to listen to that if you want to go deep into kind of how Michael thinks about the world and our place in it. Today we're going to talk a lot about franchising specifically, but for the people without giving people homework to go back, Michael, tell us just a little bit about you and your background. Michael ODriscoll (01:00.087) Sure, no, that's happy to do that. So I've been in franchising for around 37 years. Seems like a long time because it is. I actually started in my father's business in the great city of Brisbane in the state of Queensland in Australia. He was in the early 1980s, the founder of Australia's largest residential building franchise called New Steel Homes, which is no longer, it's been bought and sold a few times. I cut my teeth there, really saw the power of franchising as a wealth creation and business growth tool. From there, I got very fortunate. I bounced around a little bit after dad sold the business, worked for companies that in some way or another specialized in franchising, whether it was a communications firm or a bank, for instance, Citibank. I worked for Citibank in Australia. and got to roll out that franchise finance program over the years. They're very successfully to many countries and many thousands of franchisees and franchisors were financed through that program. It was very successful. From there, I worked in about four, five different franchise companies. Middle to senior manager eventually got to CEO or director. So I've had a successful career in franchising. All of those franchise systems have been in the building materials, consumers, financial services, property maintenance, property services. I've covered all of that ground in my career. I've also done a stint in management consulting. I was a principal in a management consulting firm in Australia, really got deep into the strategy side of things, an organisational design in that business model. which is very useful, but decided I needed to go back into real work, shall we say, with great deference to the consultants, and move to America, where I had been doing lots of business anyway over the years in franchise and helping franchisors get into the US marketplace. Because in my opinion, it's the largest and most lucrative franchise marketplace in the world. I mean, there are other countries where there would probably be just as many franchise units. Michael ODriscoll (03:22.539) but I doubt whether they would have the same kind of financial volume success as they do in the United States. I met my now partner working here. I've helped quite a few different franchise brands with their entry into the United States and a couple of US brands with their assessment of international markets and where do they go, how do they do it, because there's a variety of ways you can do international franchising. It's just not one method. Michael ODriscoll (03:53.993) it needs to be done well because it is cross-border transaction and there's cultural issues in play. But I enjoy the international franchise side of things. When you actually get into the research about it, it is just phenomenally successful everywhere. I mean, there's probably countries where franchising isn't used, but I can think of most of them where they are and they've all got franchise associations of some description. And they've been... I've been very happy to play in that global franchising space. I've been very fortunate. There we go. What Makes a Great Franchise System? Key Qualities Explained Jeff Dudan (04:28.926) Michael, I can't think of a better person to ask this question to, and I'm going to throw you just a big squishy softball here. What makes a great franchise system? Michael ODriscoll (04:41.323) I can't hear you, Jeff. Your sound is disappearing. Jeff Dudan (04:44.33) Really? Okay. I said... Okay. Let me turn up the mic just a little bit. How about now? Is it better? Okay, great. So I can't think of a better person to ask this question to. I'm gonna give you a big softball here and you take it wherever you want to. What makes a great franchise system? Michael ODriscoll (04:45.779) Yeah, I don't know whether that's me or that's you. It's just really soft. Michael ODriscoll (04:55.744) Oh, that's better. Yeah. Michael ODriscoll (05:13.156) Well, first of all, I don't think there's any one definition, right? And that's a really, it's a cop out answer, but franchising itself is not an industry per se. It's a method of distributing goods and services, right? People often, and certainly the franchise sector perpetuates in a little bit where people think it's some kind of industry sector, you know, but it's not. It doesn't have any official classification. most federal governments around the world, if you went into their Bureau of Statistics, you wouldn't find necessarily franchising as an industry category. You might find a mention somewhere in there, but franchising as a method of distributing goods and services exists across many industry categories, if not most these days. There's pretty much not much that hasn't been franchised or in one form or another. So it is very difficult to define necessarily what good looks like, because what's good in home services might not necessarily be the same standard of practice that you would see in quick service restaurants, for example. So, although there are some universal principles in the sense of how do you treat your franchise owners, your franchisees? Have they invested in an underlying sound asset? You know, it doesn't matter whether you're been at franchising for three years or six months. If you're a franchisor, the person that is granting the franchise rights, you're It is absolutely essential first and foremost that the underlying business, the thing that is being franchised is sound. So is it something that some guy just started and went well for six months and then started offering franchises? Or is it something that has a trading record successfully over a few years at least, preferably longer, so that there is a substantive underlying business asset that has a degree of uniqueness to it that is replicatable across many markets? That in essence is what a good franchise model is. Now having said that, it is also by its nature very entrepreneurial. So people take risk in expanding businesses using the franchise business model. And when I say risk, it's classic entrepreneurial risk. They have limited capital, even though they might have a successful underlying business, but they use the capital of franchisees. Michael ODriscoll (07:35.031) to expand the network of those franchises and build scale inside that brand for the benefit of themselves and the franchisees. So that was what in, that's kind of a bit of a classic definition of franchising if you will. Now, these days it's thankfully way more sophisticated. There are still the entrepreneurs that rip in there with a business idea, see an opportunity or they owned a business and they think, I want to scale this thing but I want to do it fast and I want to do it. on a shared capital basis. So that means using franchisees capital rather than build a big corporate head office. I want to keep it lean and I want to grow rapidly. So, you know, it's not uncommon for new franchise systems if they get their franchise program right to grow by a hundred percent plus per annum, you know, that's the nature of the model. What you have to be is savvy enough to support that growth. because growth, hyper growth is as challenging to support as business decline. Although one is better to work on than the other. So in franchising in that sense these days, it's become a little bit more sophisticated. There are laws that you have to comply with in the United States. There is disclosure regime that you have to embrace. There are brokers that you had consultants that you might want to deal with. It's a very sophisticated and mature marketplace. for people to own small businesses and grow their businesses. Most of the people that buy franchises these days are reasonably well informed because it is such a ubiquitous method of doing business. Now, it's not some kooky sitting on the side way of doing things. It is deeply entrenched across many industry categories. If you walk down Main Street somewhere, you'd probably see seven or eight out of 10 of those businesses in one form or another a franchise these days. It's very ubiquitous, very common method of doing business. But what makes a really good one for me is the underlying asset must be sound already, preferably with at least three years of trading underneath it. Then you must look at the leadership of that franchise company. Do they know what they're doing? Now you can give them a few points for being new to franchising. How to Evaluate a Franchise Before You Buy In Michael ODriscoll (09:51.687) learning as they go, as long as they do the right thing, like join the International Franchise Association, go and seek education about what good franchising looks like, network with people that have done it before. Maybe hire people inside their organisation that have some experience, particularly when it comes to marketing, because the lifeblood of all franchise, good franchise systems is their marketing methodology. It should be proven, known. They should have people dedicated to that function. who know how to help franchisees run local marketing programs in their territories that drive their top line growth. That's really, really important. So if you're looking at a franchise system, you want to scrutinize what are their marketing chops. All right. You need to know that they know how to help you acquire customers. All right. That's really, really important. So you look at their marketing systemization is a word that's used in franchising. So I look for things that have been. have been early adopters of systemization? Have they got a little operations manual, even though they might not have been around for a long time? Have they bothered to document policy process as a learning? Do they have a dedicated training function? Not everyone does that these days, but that's really important. Have you taken your intellectual property and have you developed it in a way that is easy for adults to learn so that they know how to... spend a few weeks being taught your business, and they can reasonably go out into the field and operate that business, even though they've never done it before. So that's really, really important. So that speaks also to the quality of the underlying asset. It needs to be that replicatable business that is not difficult for people to operate. They don't need a PhD, they don't need an MBA, they need their capital, they need their right attitude, they need their character and resilience. and they need their discipline to apply themselves to the implementation of an annual business plan. So for me, when I'm looking at what makes a good franchise, I look at those things, but I also look at who is it that I'm dealing with on a day-to-day basis if I'm a franchise owner or franchisee? Is it the owner of the business or the founder? Is it a general manager? Is it an operations business coach style person? Michael ODriscoll (12:17.247) And I make sure I try and connect with those people. And as best as you can, good franchise models hire people that come from the sector, not just with franchise business model experience, but if it's a fencing company, they know something about building a fence business, or they know something about how to build a fence, because you need that technical expertise. And that's what people are investing in. They're actually investing in you and your people and the intellectual property you've created that teaches them. how to run a business and have a better than average chance of being successful. So I look at all of those things. A lot of people will write a big capital letters culture. What is it? Do they resolve conflict in a healthy manner, which is something I've heard you talk about before. Are they able to move past things, points of difference, actually collaborate and find ways of cooperating together for the benefit of all the stakeholders in the business. I think... people really need to look closely at that. Who are the people I'm dealing with? Not only their experience, but their character, their philosophy about business. What's their vision for the business? Are they here just to flip it quick, make a few bucks and move on to the next thing? Or do they actually have a long-term commitment to building a viable asset that is successful for all the stakeholders? So there's some of the things that I look at when I'm thinking about what is a successful... or what makes a good franchisor, there's some of the things. I mean, you can go into great detail about each one of those points, right? But at a high level, particularly when people talk to me about what's a good franchise. I wish I had a couple of bucks for every time I've been asked that question over 37 years, I wouldn't be sitting here. I tell people, you've got to do your homework. I'm still surprised people come into franchise models without doing sufficient homework. You've got to understand, what do I get? and what don't I get? The second part of that is what do they do and what is my responsibility? Because you're a business owner, it's your business. You've taken a franchise license from someone, but they don't run it for you. You have to run. You have to be accountable for that business ownership. That's the other thing I look for in good franchise businesses, right? Is what's the health of the franchisees? They might all be new. Michael ODriscoll (14:41.271) But is their attitude right? Are they participating in meetings? Is there a lively and constructive exchange of ideas and problem solving? That's the kind of thing I also look for, for a relative mark of, is this a high quality franchise system? Not all about the franchise or, if they've got franchisees, what are they like? You can ask that question as well. Jeff Dudan (15:03.786) I think that's an incredible point. Much of what you just spoke to lean towards the emerging new brand perspective. Obviously, if you're going to join a, I don't know, a Minikey, a Mako, one of those big, you know, 50 year old brands that has thousands of locations, the systems are going to be set, the business practices are going to be set, you're going Jeff Dudan (15:34.16) refined over many, many decades. And there are definite advantages to that. What might be some of the advantages to joining an emerging brand? Of course, Homefront brands that we're building together. In partnership, we're building that. And while the companies that we've put into the platform have been operating some since 2006, 2007, as a platform, we are emerging. And we've got... great new systems and you know, so there's opportunities I think for people to join kind of a fast growing emerging platform. What might some of those opportunities or advantages be? Emerging Brands vs. Legacy Franchises: Risk, Reward, and Opportunity Michael ODriscoll (16:13.131) Yeah, you're quite right. There is a difference between if you're a franchise owner, your assessment and what you might expect if you're joining an emerging system. And an emerging system is, it's got a few definitions attached to it, that it's, you know, the range is broad, and versus a mature system, so like a Subway, who's been around for like 50 years or 60 years or whatever it's been. And, you know, very prescribed processes, policies, benchmarks. a heavy systemized and successful way of doing things, right? So there should be a higher degree of predictability to that. You might not get a big, steep growth trajectory, depending on the market that you're going into or whether you've bought an existing site or not. But an emerging franchise system comes with a different set of risks. Obviously, it's a newish style business that hasn't been around for 50 years. The underlying asset might've been trading for many, many years. So the thing... that they built the franchise, the business that they built the franchise business model on. Hopefully it's been around for quite a long time, very successful trading record, a lot of know how in there. But at the same time, when you come into an emerging system, it's pretty typical that not everything is worked out 100%. The franchisor is still building their expertise. They're still building their expertise about the franchise business model. They'll have deep expertise about the business that's being franchised. Michael ODriscoll (17:38.955) The operations manual might not be 100%. They might not have everything documented. The training might be done not by professionals, but by individuals and subject matter experts in the business, which is perfectly okay. They might not have a massive team, might be very, very lean. You might be dealing with the founder or you might be dealing with just a couple of people. It's the old story, they don't know what they don't know at this point in their journey. Although I still argue that it's become more sophisticated than that. So what should you expect? Well, you should expect that and accept that you're going into an emerging system. It's not all fully baked. There's stuff that needs to be developed as the system grows, as they appoint more franchise owners, as more trading volume goes through those franchise owners and they acquire more customers, they get more capabilities to analyze that data and understand how to get better at acquiring customers and growing the top line. And then you've just got throughput through the franchisees to be able to benchmark. all of the KPIs that you need to benchmark to understand what the pathways to profit might be for those franchisees. Very hard to do in the first year of operation, but gets better as time goes on. So it's kind of like, it's the ultimate representation of entrepreneurialism in the franchise business model where you have emerging franchisees. If you get in at that ground floor opportunity, rightly, if you're in there for a while and you're successful, you're probably... going to see greater returns over that period of time, because you've taken the risk equation and you've gone early rather than later into an established mature model, which has more predictability to it, but perhaps not the same growth trajectory or return. So it's all about the risk profile you want to take, right? I know at Homefront, we've got some very sophisticated franchise owners that recognize it for what it is. underlying business assets are very sound, been trading for a long time. It's a sophisticated team. It's a, you know, we've gone the extra step to hire well ahead of revenue and get all the expertise and the leadership and the technical subjects, like lead generation that we, we believed we needed to be to go faster to that enterprise mature level of organization. And I think that helped us attract that caliber of franchise owner. We've got very sophisticated owners. Michael ODriscoll (20:03.815) very successful senior executives or people that have owned many businesses before or other franchises, but they're savvy enough to recognize the ground floor opportunity and what that means over a 10 year period of their franchise agreement. So I think it just gets down to risk profile and what your appetite is. And with an emerging brand, yes, absolutely you will carry more risk in there, but you should all things being equal see a greater reward at the other end of that journey. Jeff Dudan (20:35.894) That makes a lot of sense. Michael, I've often heard you say to franchisees and other speaking engagements that it is our desire for you to start well so that you go well. Specifically, you are talking about how a franchisee approaches the first phase of their business, market penetration, market launch, the onboarding process, training, hiring. negative 60 when they decide to join a franchise system up through training and then that first 120 days trading in market. Can you talk a little bit about the things that you would indicate to people that they should focus on if they want to start well? Why the First 120 Days Can Make or Break a Franchisee Michael ODriscoll (21:26.259) Yeah, sure. It's a good point. Look, like anything in life, if something starts well, it feels pretty good, right? You think, oh, okay, this is good. You know, should have been doing this ages ago. It's the same in business. And I think, again, this is the power of a franchise business model, right? A degree of systemization of replicatable intellectual property, you know, that's documented and trainable. It's what's essential. And I've learned this over 37 years. I think you have too, is that Jeff Dudan (21:33.14) Yeah. Michael ODriscoll (21:55.423) It's in that first four to five months that the behavior gets baked in. Right. So whatever the franchisee experience is in that first four to five months, and you could include, you know, negative 60 days to opening versus, you know, 60 to 90 days afterwards. Um, it's pretty much what you get, right? So if it's an average or poor experience, that could define the rest of the relationship for the term of the franchise agreement and you get a sub optimal performance because everything seems hard, right? The franchisee. has had a poor experience by their own hand or the hand of the franchisor or both. It's very much a two-way street franchising. So if that's poor experience, you kind of got it forever versus anything in life. Anyone can reflect on, think of when something started well for you and how you felt psychologically and emotionally about that versus a poor experience that you had. Something that starts well gives you confidence It gives you resilience because inevitably in business, something will go wrong. It's just the nature of human beings being involved in business. So if you start well, it gives you confidence. It gives you focus. It gives you resilience. Three incredibly important things to have in business ownership. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to be a business owner. You need to have the character and the wit to go about it the right way. and the accountability and discipline. That doesn't need, you don't need to have six PhDs. You don't need to have owned businesses before to have that. So I think about that as starting well means, can we get a franchise owner writing business, or at least doing estimates, lots of estimates, right? In their territories, even before they get to training, if that's possible, right? But sometimes you need them to get through training. But it's essential that if they're transacting before their grand opening, in my opinion, that sets everything up for success. They see the art of what is possible without actually formally being open. And their confidence is boosted, their enthusiasm is boosted, their attitude is right, and they're good to go. And take a lesson from anything in life that you've done. If it's started well, you're good to go. Michael ODriscoll (24:22.439) It just feels right and you feel like you can conquer the world. All right. So it is absolutely essential. And this is a part of high performance or good franchising and responsible franchising, whatever you want to call it. Is the good franchisor invests in that. Right. They, they get their act together and they make sure from the get go, the customer journey, well, not the customer journey, but the franchisee journey. Is just good from the start. And then you set yourself up the right way, and then you've got a really good symbiotic relationship and you can resolve future challenges together in the right way because you've got relationship equity in the bank and you can just get it right. So over the years, I have learned very much the importance of creating franchise business models that just focus on starting well, right? That experience for the franchise owner. So their confidence is good and their focus is great and they're accountable. high. And that, you know, I narrow that down to the first four to five months, but it's also true of the first 12 months. Hey, it's their first 12 months of being in business. We want that to go well. A lot of franchises, people that buy franchises want profitability now. You know, they think it just happens, but it doesn't. You actually have to build up a trading track record. You have to grow your top line. There is no bottom line without a top line in business. That's not the way business works. So, you know, I often recommend to franchise owners, profit is important, but only if you've got a top line to help you create that profit. So keep focusing on growth. By their very nature, franchise business models are growth orientated business models, right? They need to grow, right? They can't meander along at one or 2% like a big corporate paradigm. They need double digit every year. because you've got an owner driving it at the local level and you've got a franchise or holding that owner to account on their performance because both win out of that. I mean, that's an incredibly powerful relationship when done well. And I always tell franchise owners, the profit will be there if you're disciplined enough with how you run your business, but only first and foremost, if you've grown the top line. So that first 12 months, Michael ODriscoll (26:47.219) Sales, sales, building profile in your community, making people or helping people understand who you are, what you stand for, why you're doing it, and how they can engage with you, absolutely essential. Lay that foundation for the first 12 months. Inevitably, people have signed a 10-year agreement. They're making a long-term commitment, hopefully to at least five of that. They've got to get those foundations right from the get-go. Otherwise, the building will have problems down the track. Jeff Dudan (27:17.834) Yeah, fair enough. At Homefront Brands, we've invested heavily financially and also from an energy and attention perspective in this concept of human-centered design. And what that means for us is putting the franchisee at the center of everything we do. One of the things that's clearly evident is in our learning management system, our investment in our learning management leadership, our learning management team, our learning management It's we're one of the I don't know anybody else who net promoter scores their franchisees every month But we do and our learning management system Especially and coming out of training. We also get net promoter score coming out of training and every month Because we're growing so fast that we want to make sure that perception is reality and we're focusing on Making sure that we're focusing on the issues that affect our franchisees in operating their business but When you look at the learning management system, what other ways are we focusing on keeping that franchisee at the center of everything that we do? And how important is that philosophically subtle, but significant in growing a healthy franchise system? Michael ODriscoll (28:37.459) Yeah, no, it's a great question. So this is in the bucket of starting well as well. If your approach as a franchisor is to just award franchises and say, here's the ops manual, here's a bit of training and away you go type of thing, what we'll call franchise light, it's leaving money on the table for all the stakeholders. And it's really not the responsible thing to do. In my opinion, Human-Centered Franchising: Putting the Franchisee First Jeff Dudan (28:42.811) Mm-hmm. Michael ODriscoll (29:08.351) Great learning and development. So learning and development design, so for adult learning, right? That's a particular method of teaching people. And that's what we prescribe to at Homefront Brands. We've got a very, you know, well experienced learning and development executive who creates the content. So it takes all that wonderful intellectual property we have in each brand and basically creates online learning modules and classroom learning modules. Very important. Because it's not just the one off at the initial training, it's the ongoing commitment to knowledge. Knowledge comes from the franchisor, but knowledge is also created by your cohort of franchise owners. So the good franchisor creates a method of harnessing the work done by franchise owners in the field to keep developing the franchise business model for everyone's benefit, capturing those gems of wisdom that come from frontline trading. is absolutely essential and is a very important part of responsible franchising. So I make sure that, and that's an example of putting the franchisee at center on the organization. Franchiseurs that pretend that they are the all-seeing, all-knowing being are being delusional. They're not the person that is interfacing with the customer, even if they've got a call center inside their organization, which is very important to in some way, let that voice of the customer fall directly on the franchisor ears. So they have a balanced view when they're talking to franchisees. It's still the franchisee is the primary customer point, right? That's where they're not. They're the ones operating the businesses around the country every day. They know what works and what doesn't. The responsible franchisor knows how to listen to that without getting emotional, right? And says, that's good. That's a fantastic idea. We should trial that before we roll it out. or has a lucid argument around why they're not going to do something even though a couple of franchisees might think it's a good idea. They just don't dismiss things out of hand. They give an appropriate amount of airtime to the franchise owners because they're the ones doing the business. So unless you own corporate outlets, which is not uncommon in some franchise brands, so that you're directly interfacing with the customer, you have to rely on the franchisee to run their business well. Michael ODriscoll (31:34.811) and to give you feedback about their experiences so that you can keep developing that intellectual property for all the stakeholders benefit. And again, if you found a responsible franchisee you would absolutely see that they would do that. And in validation, when people are making their assessments and they're talking to existing franchisees, you should be able to hear that from the existing franchisees. Yes, they give me the time of day, they listen to me, they explain why they're not going to do things. They just don't issue policies and make us do stuff. They actually explain things. They consult us when there's big decisions to be made and just don't shove stuff down their throat all the time. These are intelligent people that have taken a risk journey with you. Don't treat them like children. Treat them like adults that you would have a warm relationship with that you should be able to trust in order that you can together both build the franchise system. So wherever you get them, there's some stuff, some days you just, something happens and you just have to issue policy, right? So guys, and, but you set the expectation as I do in training, I say there'll be days where you just have to take one for the team, like in any team environment, right? And there are days when we'll sit down and have a chat about it and say, is this the right thing to do for everyone? Right? And both parties can get to explain their position. It's not always easy to do that, right? Because people get emotional about things because they get attached to their idea. or their way of doing things. And so they create this emotional attachment and they get wound up about it. They get really passionate about things because they are and that's what you want. You want a passionate group of franchise owners driving their businesses. But at the same time, you want to encourage ideation but it needs to be managed. It just can't be freewheeling. Because what might be a unique circumstance for one franchisee that works really well for them. that rolls out to the whole network and doesn't work can be dreadful experience for everyone. So there's ways of doing things, right, in franchising that a responsible franchisor does. And that is, you might have a really great new product or service, but instead of releasing it to, you know, your large cohort of franchisees and train them on it and all that kind of thing, get the vendor involved, whatever's going on. Michael ODriscoll (34:00.435) You do it with a really small group of early adopters and prove it out. And then you roll it out in chunks rather than everyone. That's a responsible thing to do. Right. That's really important. And that's, that's what we mean by putting the franchisee at the center of the organization. Right. The first thing you have to ask yourself, and this gets real hard, right? This gets real hard. You need to be an experienced franchise executive to get through this. Is this the right thing to do by the franchisee? Because if it's not. Jeff Dudan (34:09.11) That's right. That's right. Michael ODriscoll (34:30.535) and you might make a quick buck out of it, but they don't get a lot of benefit out of it. It is a long-term nightmare, in my opinion, right? It just erodes relationship equity. Anything you can do that's good for the franchisee that helps them keep growing their top and bottom line, you are well served by as a franchisor, and you shouldn't complicate it any more than that. So it's essential that franchisors, in my opinion, have the clarity of thought about what it means to put the franchisee at the center of the organization. Ultimately, they are the user of the intellectual property alongside the customer who's getting the product or service. But it's the franchisee that has to deliver that. They have to take what you've taught them at the take what policies and procedures that you have and the tools that you provide them. And they have to make it work in a geographic location somewhere. So when you think about that, and you think about what it looks like to them, you have to keep it. relatively simple, even though it might've been a complex project that you worked on. The delivery needs to be simple. It needs to be built alongside the franchisee as much as possible. And then you need to set an expectation about what they will and won't get from whatever it is that you're doing with them. So yeah, human centered design, what does that mean? It's an old technology term. I'm not that old. Or an organizational term where you say, You recognize that the stakeholders in a business are like users of software. As you know, the iPhone experience is elegant. If you've used the iPhone all the time, you don't have to think about it too much. You just pick it up and you start your finger, drag all over the screen. It's intuitive, right? That's what we mean by putting the franchisee at the center of the organization. We're taking that intellectual property. We're constantly refining it, but we're keeping it relatively straightforward for people to be successful inside that model. Why Some Franchises Scale—and Most Don’t (90% Fail Within 12 Years) Jeff Dudan (36:25.858) Let's go to a topic that I'm very interested to hear your perspective on. It could be a little controversial. And the basis of where I want to go is why do some franchise systems scale and others do not. And to set it up, I would say, I would share, which isn't a stat that the industry is probably proud of, that 90% of franchisors fail within 12 years. Michael ODriscoll (36:42.869) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (36:55.634) Observationally to me, people have learned how to attract people to a franchise system and to award them franchises. There's things that you can do to participate in getting leads and bringing people in and getting them to give your business a go. Now I've observed that over year four, five and six. and I've looked at this across businesses I built and businesses that other people have built. If a system has cracks in it, year four, five and six is where those become magnified because you can get people the first year you're going to get a handful of people in, they're going to be you know picnic baskets and they're going to definitely feel and rightfully so that they had input into how the system was built. They've got proximity to the owner founders. Michael ODriscoll (37:34.795) Hmm. Yes. Jeff Dudan (37:51.778) Year two you accelerate year three now. You're maybe up to what would be considered a standard Cadence of bringing new franchise owners into the system year four if things aren't working and If you've made some false starts and you've dwindled that bucket of relationship equity with that first 30 or 40 franchises that you've gotten the system that you've shown them that while you talked a good game that you weren't willing to make the investments You weren't well, you weren't able to put them over the target You weren't able to make their life easy You weren't able to give them intelligence to figure out how to get another couple of points out of the business top line or bottom line at that point There's belief that's lost inside of a franchise system and I see so many systems getting to that year four or five and six and They've got it now. It's a break fix or it's an overhaul or they've got to do something because they either didn't know what to invest in, in what order or they just couldn't afford to do it or they just chose not to. There's a lot of different reasons, but I'm shocked at the number of systems with 20, 30, 40, even 100 units that end up in some state of disrepair or some state of decline. And it's not something that we talk about in the industry a lot, but it's certainly out there because we don't want to. Obviously we don't want to disparage our industry, but I also think from a responsible perspective, especially if you're looking at joining a system that's been around for one or two or three years or four years, what are you looking for if I'm a prospect? What are the types of things that would indicate to me that the business is going to continue to scale? And I think the last thing I'll say before I kick it over to you is I heard Charlie Chase say this, who's the CEO of First Service Corporation at one time. He said, when you make a decision or an implementation into a network, it's 18 to 24 months before you understand the impact of the decision that you made. So when you were talking about not rolling, you know, piloting things, you have to be really careful because you're spending other people's time, energy and money. So when you're, when you roll something out. Michael ODriscoll (39:44.965) Thank you. Michael ODriscoll (40:04.001) That's right. Jeff Dudan (40:06.55) And everyone's like, OK, I trust you, franchise or I'm going to give this a try. And then it's going to run its way all the way through the markets and all the way through people trying it and adopting it. And if they look back after 18 months and say that wasn't good, you've only got so many of those before the sentiment inside of the franchise system turned skeptical. And skeptical is not a way to be nimble. and have speed to market and take advantage of opportunities. You really want a high trust, high capability, high credibility relationship with your franchisees. All of that lays into the relationship equity piece that you mentioned, but I'm interested in your perspective as to if there's anything that people could look at where why some franchise platforms scale at that year four, five and six, and then others, it's the top of the hill and the decline starts from there. Michael ODriscoll (41:01.567) Yeah, it's a good question. Look, I don't know how correct, pardon me, that 90% number is probably about right. Look, franchising, I do believe it mitigates risk for small business owners, right, when done well, versus just, hey, I'm gonna start a fencing business and try to figure it out. You're walking into something that is a little systemized, has some methods of doing things. It's not unreasonable to expect that the risk profile is less than sort of going it alone, right? Cause you don't have to go and figure out what systems and software you should have and how to, how to require customers, all that constant. Um, franchising in many markets around the world has a bit of a self perpetuating sort of myth that it's risk-free. Um, that's not right. Obviously nothing is risk-free in life. There is always risk attached to everything. So people need to recognize that. Um, The second thing I would say is that I think it's an exercise in human behavior. Why is one entrepreneur more successful than another one? Why is one just successful and one is not? It's the same question I get asked about franchising. Why is one franchisee who takes the same system, brand, gets the same territory, pays the same amount of money, is more successful than someone who does the same thing but goes nowhere? What is that? That is fascinating to me. And that is just straight out human behavior and thinking. It gets down to the character of the people. It doesn't matter whether they've owned a business before. It doesn't matter whether they've got a college degree. It just matters whether they've got the wherewithal. And what do we mean by wherewithal? Mindset. Do they have a positive mental attitude about, I can make this work. I am gonna make this work. The talk coming out of them is all the right kind of talk. Do they have the character to make the tough calls? Like if they have to move an employee on or a contractor on because they can't do stuff, move them on. Make the tough calls of business that you need to make rather than let things linger and just keep getting mediocrity. It just doesn't work. And then there is the resilience and the accountability. Do they look in the mirror every day and say, if it is to be, it is up to me? Michael ODriscoll (43:24.567) A franchisor doesn't run my business. I run my business. My employees don't run my business. I run my business. I am accountable for producing an annual business plan and implementing that plan and holding myself accountable to it. Thank goodness I've got a franchisor who's there to coach me and guide me and give me the warning signals if something's off track and how do I get back on track? Again, the power of a good franchise model. But ultimately, they're accountable. Jeff Dudan (43:28.142) Alright. Mindset Over Metrics: The Human Factors That Drive Success Michael ODriscoll (43:52.223) And they've got the resilience to get through the tough times. In 37 years, that's what I've seen at the franchisee level. Same age, same amount of money, same business model, same territory size, and it's just the individual. Do they have the wherewithal? It's the same for a franchisor, in my opinion. Franchising is harder for a franchisor. Again, the perception is, hey, a franchisor creates a franchise business model. zooms up to 25 to 50 outlets or franchisees. Rolling in money is the perception that they are when it's not the case at all, right? They're still scaling. They're still investing in the business. They're probably paying themselves modestly, probably building good equity in the business. But it's still a hard road, right? Franchising is just the same as any other business model. Life doesn't get good until you've got the scale and the scale. And even then, you need good to be a successful franchisee, you've got a top line and a bottom line to manage, and you're responsible to a large cohort of franchisees and your head office team members. I do think that just like starting well for the franchisee is important, starting well for the franchisee is important. They probably come in with, if they're a founder, great vision, very bold. At night, they're dreaming about having a thousand franchisees that are on stage at the and they're getting wildly applauded because they've created this model that's made all these people money. Wonderful fantasy. And it's important to have those dreams, right? You gotta dream big in order to get big, right? It all happens with that ideation and that staring out the window going, this could be massive and I can do it, right? And facing down all of those fears and then getting your business, pardon me, get your business head on and... creating the disciplines and accountability inside the franchisor so that you go well. So a responsible franchisor does not just sell franchises or award franchises to anyone that walks through the door. They have to be discerning. Even though the capital is important and you wanna award franchises and grow your brand, you have to have the discipline to look at each individual candidate on their merits and say, is this the kind of person? Michael ODriscoll (46:17.643) that I can continue to work with in the right way in five to 10 years time. Right? Can you, now you, like all great relationships, you don't know what you've got until you really got it. All right? So that's the risk bit, right? We think we know our partner when we get married, and then we find out a whole bunch of stuff we didn't know, right? So it's, and we either accept that and roll with it, or we run for the hills. So in business, it's the same. Jeff Dudan (46:28.621) Red. Jeff Dudan (46:36.08) Haha Michael ODriscoll (46:44.723) You want to make an assessment on whether or not you can work with that candidate. Are they going to be a net positive contributor or are they just going to be a disruptive soul? Now, I don't mind the disruptive souls if they're doing it for the right reason. They're challenging you with intelligence and common sense. They're just not throwing rocks at things because they're grumpy about the fact they're not doing very well in their business. So it's you absolutely When you get to that four to five, six year mark, if you haven't been scurrying and it's a hard slog, then it's easy for your mind to go, forget it, I'm walking away. Right, because just like the relationship in personal life gets hard, if you can't find a way through it by anchoring to that positive, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this, right? What is my end game? Too many people in my opinion started business, whether it's a franchise or something else. whether it's a franchisee or a franchisor, they don't start with the end in mind, right? They say, I just wanna be rich and famous, or I just wanna be rich. And I want people to like me because I created this opportunity and I did well. Very noble and very important to have those ideas and ideals. But ultimately, you have to say, well, what's my end game? And I think, again, thinking about the most successful franchisors and franchisees, They have an end game, right? And they might say, I'm taking 10 years to build a hundred year legacy that goes multi-generational wealth, just like we talk about at Homefront Brands, right? Noble, obtainable and impactful, right? And I think great franchisors have that. They can articulate that. They can tell you what the journey is that they're on and where it's going. Now, there'll be forks in the road. Things will happen where they might have to adjust the end game a little bit. Jeff Dudan (48:14.014) Right. Jeff Dudan (48:22.594) That's right. The End Game: Scaling with Vision, Discipline, and Emotional Intelligence Michael ODriscoll (48:40.471) But more importantly, they still have an end game. They're North Star that guides them, that makes them do the right thing instead of just, hey, you've walked in my front door, here's a franchise. And that's irresponsible. That's not doing the right thing by the existing franchisees. There is a responsibility that franchisees have that people that don't know about franchising don't really understand. And even the existing franchisees might not fully appreciate it. You think you're just awarding franchises to anyone. Sometimes what franchisees think of franchisals, but you're not. I know that we're very discerning about the way we do it at home from, because we want everyone to play nice, right? The power of a franchise model is when the franchisees are not hunting against one another, but they're hunting in packs to keep the competition out of their markets and be successful, right? That's fantastic. They're solving problems together. They're cooperating. They're being wise about how they work together. That's really important. So I think a lot of people just get fatigued because they allow their mind to trick them into saying, this was harder than I thought it was going to be. I should just give up. Whereas the most successful people go, yes, this is hard, but I still see the path to my end goal. So I'm going to make a commitment to resolving hard or accept that the journey is tough, right? You know, one of those stoic lessons I like to slip in, it's not so much about the end game, it's about accepting what the journey is to get to that end game and not fighting it, right? Saying, I thought it would be easier. That kind of talk doesn't help you, right? Okay, it's tough, business is hard. Anyone who's been successful in business will not tell you it was a walk in the park. No one says that. You know, they said, well, it was hard and there were times I questioned myself. Jeff Dudan (50:21.918) Right. Jeff Dudan (50:31.371) Yeah. Michael ODriscoll (50:35.943) is this the right thing I was doing? It's perfectly normal. Where humans fail, in my opinion, is because they just don't have the resilience or the grit. They just go, oh, it's too hard. And that, to me, defines the difference between a successful person and not a successful person. Now, that is also normal, by the way. There are people who love the challenge. They're there for the fight. They want that daily high impact. Let's go. Let's... scrap for every dollar, and they do it with good grace, hopefully. They're not difficult people to deal with. And there are people who just melt under pressure, and they just can't handle it. That's who they are. Some people can change that within themselves and overcome that, and just some people can't. And that is the human condition. As best we can as a franchisor, I think, and I reflect on my time as a franchisor, there's been some very difficult situations. You wonder what the hell am I doing here? And how did I get here? And what am I gonna do? And then you remind yourself that you have a commitment to others. You have a commitment to provide for your family. You have a commitment to your head office employees. You have a commitment to vendors. You have a commitment to shareholders and you have a commitment to franchise owners to keep investing in yourself, to be better as a leader and coach your people how to get through the tough times. If you've got to that four year mark, unless it's just a financial disaster, examine why things aren't going well and get help. Because if you're four to five years in and you've got 20, 30, 50 franchisees, you've got something. As a franchise business model, you're onto something. If you can stay the course, get the help you need, whether that's capital, whether it's extra people. whether it's an advisory board, whatever it is, right? Invest in that, get through that, and you'll find, you know, get from 50 to 100, get to 100 plus, you just chunk it down. Try not to do it all in two years. You chunk it down into attainable goals on an annual basis, and you hold yourself to account on. Jeff Dudan (52:45.675) Right? Jeff Dudan (52:50.974) Yeah, franchising is a people business, and I've found myself saying that the older I get in life, the more important it is who I go through life with, and that's certainly true in franchising because it's a long-term relationship. There's mutual accountability. There's absolute alignment and goals, objectives that need to be agreed upon and committed to between all of the stakeholders in the business. And it's really, I mean, it is a collaborative effort. So... Michael ODriscoll (52:54.56) Got it. Jeff Dudan (53:19.574) When we talk about us or we at Homefront Brands, it's all of us. It's our partners. It's our vendors It's franchisees their employees our employees. I mean we are we are one and we work together on it Michael We're coming up to the top of the hour. I've got my favorite last question For you if you had one sentence to make an impact in someone else's life today What would you say to them? Michael ODriscoll (53:43.163) It's the same one I said last time, Jeff, and that is don't die wondering. All right. I've taken great risk in my life for great reward. Sometimes it hasn't worked out, but dust myself off, keep going, right? Because you're a long time dead. If you wonder whether you should do something or not, start that business. Ask that girl or guy out for a date, whatever it is, right? Face the fear. Face the fear. Jeff Dudan (54:08.802) You're a long time dead, huh? Michael ODriscoll (54:12.675) and have a go at it. Have a go as we say in Australia. Just don't get to the end of your life and go, I wish I did. I hear that story a lot. Regret is a very destructive thing and I don't want to live with it. Sure, I could have made better decisions in my life. Everyone could have. I don't beat myself up about it because it's dumb. It's just like, how can I be a better person? And am I living the fullest life that I can? Jeff Dudan (54:14.655) Yeah. Michael ODriscoll (54:41.979) And am I making a contribution? So don't die wondering. Have a good. Jeff Dudan (54:46.786) Michael O. Driscoll, president of franchising, chief operating officer, Homefront Brands. Thank you for being on the Homefront today. We appreciate your wisdom and your input to all of us. And everybody out there, absolutely, thank you for listening. Have a good day, sir. Michael ODriscoll (54:59.787) My great pleasure. Thank you, Jeff.  

Passion and Personal Alignment | Kara Goldin | On The Homefront

August 14, 2025
Brief Summary In this episode of On the Homefront, host Jeff Dudan sits down with Kara Goldin, founder of Hint Water and author of Undaunted. They dive deep into Kara’s entrepreneurial journey—from a journalism student waiting tables in Arizona to becoming a tech executive at AOL, and eventually launching a beverage company that disrupted a crowded industry. Kara shares candid lessons, pivotal career moments, and how embracing the unknown led to breakthrough success.

AI, Influence & the Future of Work | Samy Samandjeu on What’s Coming Next

July 21, 2025
In this inspiring episode of On the Homefront , Jeff Dudan sits down with Samy Samandjeu , a visionary young founder who is bridging influencers and commerce through technology. Samy shares his journey from a small village in Cameroon to launching a fintech platform in London—highlighting the power of personal branding, the lessons learned from early entrepreneurial stumbles, and the importance of following your passion. They also dive into the future of social media and AI, exploring how digital avatars and automation could upend industries and redefine the meaning of work. If you're interested in influencer marketing, entrepreneurship, or how AI will impact the next generation, this conversation is a must-listen. What You’ll Learn in This Episode How social media has leveled the playing field, allowing anyone to build an audience and a brand Why personal branding is now non-negotiable for business owners (and how traditional advertising is fading) How Samy’s upbringing in Cameroon and his mother’s hustle fueled his entrepreneurial drive The philosophy of following your “highest excitement” and turning setbacks into growth opportunities How a booming talent agency’s collapse inspired the pivot to Creative App’s fintech marketplace How AI and digital "twin" avatars are poised to disrupt influencer marketing and the future of work Featured Quote "Being an entrepreneur is being punished a hundred times a day and smiling at those punches." —Samy Samandjeu Full Transcript Jeff Dudan (00:06) Welcome to the home front, everybody. This is Jeff Duden. If you grew up in a house where there were 20 homes in your village in Cameroon, if your mom left school at age 12 to support her family working odd jobs and eventually owned her own gas station only to sell it all to move the family to France for a chance at a better and new life, if you studied economics in Spain and Switzerland and in the summer at Harvard, and went on to found companies like Creative App, a fintech startup connecting influencers to commerce. Your name can only be Sammy Samandju. Welcome, Sammy. Samy Sam (00:47) Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jeff. Happy to be here. Jeff Dudan (00:51) Yeah, it's great. Great to have you on. You're coming to us from the UK today. Samy Sam (00:55) Yes, actually today I'm in Germany but yeah my home, my base is London. Jeff Dudan (01:01) I would like to start at influencers. You started a talent business and you realized very quickly, I think the average age of a talent business owner was 72 years old and you recognized that there was an opportunity inside of the talent and modeling and representation business to do things a little differently. And then that led to this creation of this Creative App, which is a marketplace, I believe, for influencers. Can anybody be an influencer today? And what is your view of social media and influence as it relates to commerce and the opportunities therein? 01:45 – Spotting a Social Media Goldmine: Early Influencer Marketing Hustle Samy Sam (01:45) I think it's quite incredible, this power that social media has given us to freedom, to market ourselves, to tell our own story, to have a voice. And I think anybody today can be that voice, can market themselves and say, this is who I am, and we'll relate to that truth. If we step back a little bit and look at where does that come from? We have the radio, then we have the TVs, and a big corporation had the monopoly on marketing the celebrities they wanted to market, the movie stars they wanted to market. And then the iPhone came and this explosion of social media, which awakened a full new wave of creators who said, hey, us too have a story to tell, us too have a story to share, us too can build products. and sell them to people who actually need them, develop solutions. So I really believe we are just at the beginning of the wave. Back in 2014, 2015, when I started seeing that shift happening, it actually came from a friend of mine in school. He sat next to me and he said, hey, Sammy, you're thinking about finance and you're studying all these numbers all the time, but social media actually is the biggest booming market and it's just day one. So I went into building a new API during the summer school with my friends on the campus. And that API could scrape everything that has an @ in a bio. And back in the day, what I had in an Instagram bio were the email addresses of brands. So I said, hey, get everything that has an @ of brands based in Paris, France. And I would get those emails and automate a marketing mail out to those brands and I would say, hey, do you want to work with this influencer in exchange of gift? And back in the days, I could only send 198 emails per day because after 200, Google will block you. So that gave me an insanely positive answer. 2014, 15 Instagram, it was just the beginning of that thing. So all these models that I was friends with from you know, going out in Paris, they started being like, my God, you managed to get free clothes, free trips, free hotels for this model, can you do it for me? So I started to get close to them and I would go to their modeling agencies and say, how does representation work? All of them would send me their contract and nobody has mentioned social media. And I was like, wow, so you are taking ownership of the image rights and managing the image rights of these models in specific locations. But the biggest location of all, digital, you don't see it coming. How come? So what I did, I drafted a one-page contract, exclusivity only social media. You can do whatever you want for print, advertising, merchandising, but anything that you do on social media goes through me. And these agencies, because they didn't see it coming, were like, no problem. Social media is not a real thing. It's going to fall. You know, the incumbents always have to fight their position. So I understood them. But at the time, I was still actually going in the library every day using it as my office and started working from the library. I would never go to any classes. My mom just, we had a deal. I'll just pass the exams. Jeff Dudan (05:09) Ha ha. Samy Sam (05:30) And I would go and stay in the library and work. In the first year, we already made a million and it was just the beginning. But today, what is happening on the different TikTok that is available with all these streamers, so many more people have the ability to tell their stories and more importantly, so many more people can become free, financially free, take ownership back of their time and truly show who they are. as a standalone human being and not anymore lay and put their trust and their faith in the future in the hands of their corporations because I think we have entered the age of liberation for all of us. Jeff Dudan (06:15) I saw some statistics late last year. I was getting involved in a project and the market in the US, I think, was $27 billion in advertising dollars that was going to be spent on social media. And I think by 2030, it was going to be $50 billion or some incredible amount. It was going to eclipse traditional media, television, all of these types of things. and people that have been early to it like yourself and then many of these ultra celebrities, some of which weren't celebrities for anything else other than social media, have taken real estate and captured it early. My question to you is, can you even own a business now and not be on social media? 07:00 – Personal Branding Is Now a Business Essential Samy Sam (07:00) It's virtually impossible just for one reason. It's people buy from what they know. When they see your face, it's not anymore. We have passed the stage in society where we build brand names. Now we are in the age of personal branding. So you have, as you said rightfully, you need to own a real estate about who you are and what your products are and what you stand for. Because the first thing people do when they go on social media, Jeff Dudan (07:06) Mm. Samy Sam (07:30) when they want to buy a product is to look into social media. And statistically, right now, the entire marketing and influencer space globally is worth around 250 billion. According to Goldman Sachs, it's shooting to 500 billion. So what does it say? 90% of Gen Z, they don't know the TV. All the time, all their purchasing decisions come from social media platforms. Jeff Dudan (07:49) Right. Samy Sam (08:00) If you, and that's simple because they don't have this time anymore to sit in front of TV and watch a movie for three hours. If you look at your statistics into Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, it's 60 seconds, the attention span of anybody on these platforms. If your video, your content is longer than 60 seconds, nobody's watching it. Imagine TV shows. It's so hard. Jeff Dudan (08:20) Right. Samy Sam (08:28) It's so hard to captivate the attention for someone for two hours, three hours. It doesn't happen anymore. Jeff Dudan (08:35) And if you're watching a television show, when a commercial comes on that I can't fast forward through, I'm not watching it. I'm getting up, I'm using the bathroom, I'm going to go to the refrigerator. Like I'm not going to sit there and stare at the television where on social media, the ads, they're invasive and they're incredibly invasive. They're right in your face. You can't get away from them. And the amount of impressions... ⁓ Samy Sam (09:00) And they are for you. They are for you. That's the biggest difference between TV and social media. TV is built for everybody. Those programs are built for everybody and anybody. But on social media, the algorithms are so good at understanding who you are, what are your subconscious triggers, and what are your needs that every single ad that is feeding you, it's making you want to take that purchasing decision. TV is totally ending. What we are going to see Jeff Dudan (09:08) Mm. Samy Sam (09:30) coming next, the personalization. And even the streaming platforms, what they're playing around with is you being able to directly purchase all the products that you see in the shows because they understand it's all about... TV is there to market. How those TVs make money is to sell because they sell advertising space. It's all the same game. Jeff Dudan (09:51) Right. That's right. Sammy, I'd like to go back and just quickly go through how you grew up. You grew up in Cameroon, a village of 20 homes, and then you moved to Paris, I believe, when you were five years old. Is that correct? 10:09 – From Cameroon to France: A Family Legacy of Hustle Samy Sam (10:09) Yeah, that's correct. Actually, my story starts with my grandma. You know, she was a very brave woman. She was selling fruits in a store market. And when my mom was 12, she had a car accident. So she lost all her teeth. She couldn't sell her fruits anymore. And so my mom took the decision to stop going to school to support her family. And my mom started being a hairdresser, doing all these small jobs. And during those jobs, she was doing the hair of a very wealthy woman. So she was hearing, "My husband made that much money, my husband needs that much money," and she would connect people, she would become a great connector. Based on that, she made some commissions. And with those commissions, one day she sold all of them, flew to Turkey without speaking a single word of English, flew to Turkey, bought cathodic TVs, the big TVs, was charming the soldiers on the tarmac of the airport, and they would carry the TVs for her on the plane. So when she flew back to Africa, she started selling them to so many different hotels. Jeff Dudan (10:45) Mm. Samy Sam (11:08) And those hotels, she made so much money that she had an import and export business. And by 27, 28, she owned a gas station. She was just a pure hustler. Jeff Dudan (11:19) Where did she learn that skill? Samy Sam (11:24) I honestly think it's— Jeff Dudan (11:24) Was it out of necessity? I mean, sometimes entrepreneurs are just... Yeah, yeah. How many brothers and sisters did you have? Samy Sam (11:28) Pure necessity. Pure drive. I have two brothers and one sister, so we are four. But it's literally my mom, the husband, even in my family, the way we actually left the country is that she wanted to start political parties and all these things. And she realized that she cannot do that in Cameroon in the 90s. And she said, okay, I need to... to do more for my kids. The 12th of July, 1998, we flew back and I remember that day exactly because when we landed in Charles de Gaulle Airport—France won the World Cup against Brazil. So it's literally like my memories activate and I see people jumping on the tarmac celebrating and us ourselves celebrating, wow, it's a beautiful life. And literally the next day, she put us in a room with me, my two brothers, Léonel and Steve, and my sister Solange, and said, listen kids, I bought flats for... we were 17, 18, all my cousins were there. She bought flats for everybody in Paris and London. She said, we all start here from now, all the money she had ever saved. And she said, the only money I've left is for private school. Who wants to go to private school? Me and Léonel, we raised our hands. Léonel became a lawyer. Steve said, hey, I want to play soccer. He became a professional soccer player. My sister became a nanny because she was already older than us. And it was really the sheer will of my mom to want more for our family. Jeff Dudan (13:02) And how did you... what kind of student were you growing up? 13:09 – From 'Terrible Student' to Swiss University: Igniting Ambition Samy Sam (13:09) A terrible student. Because my mom told me what I knew about business. If you ever meet her, she will say that she planned my life for me because at school, I had so much energy. To this day, this energy, this flame, this fire inside of me was already there. So imagine when you tell a seven-, eight-, nine-, ten-, 15-year-old kid, you have to stay seated in a chair for seven hours, that energy is... it's just bursting out there. So I wasn't a good student, but my dad always told me, you just need to be good at math. The rest doesn't matter. History books—every single president rewrites history. You don't care about that. Economics, you'll see later. He said, math, math, math is the truth that stays. Jeff Dudan (13:49) Hahaha. Yeah, I believe that to be true. So you went to private school and then somehow you ended up in university in Switzerland or in Spain. How did that work? Samy Sam (14:09) So the last year I'm in private school—I've been in boarding school my entire life almost, because my mom was always traveling and my dad was back in Cameroon because he was working there. So the last year I realized that... I was playing football, so I was also very good at soccer. And the last year I realized that all my classmates started studying very hard and started talking about the future, what they will do. That's another proof, by the way, that you are really the sum of the five people you spend the most time with, because in private school they lock you into that circle of people who are building the future, who are envisioning what they are going to do next. Because if at that precise moment I was in public school, I would have definitely never focused on studying. But that last year everyone was doing so, so I was like, oh, nobody wants to play with me and hang out and do stupid things with me. So let me do what they are doing. Jeff Dudan (14:59) Mm. Samy Sam (15:08) I will just focus on studying and I managed to have one of the best grades in the school just because I have the same strategy always. Give me two months, my brain can absorb anything in two months even if I've never looked into it. And from there, I looked around and I went to the French CAC 40—it's the trading, it's like the Nasdaq. ⁓ And I went into the website and I looked at the 40 biggest capitalizations in France: 40 white men, 38 from the same school called Polytechnique. And I said, okay, that will never be me. So I don't click any category because I always had the aspiration to be leading companies and businesses. So I started looking around at different countries and I looked into the US, into Canada, into Switzerland, and my mom said, hey, Switzerland is very close, we can come visit you. And I applied and because of my grades, I was accepted and I was like, yes, let's go to Switzerland for the adventure. And I ended up in one of the greatest universities in Switzerland, HEC Lausanne basically (the commerce, HEC in Lausanne). Jeff Dudan (16:23) What's amazing as I continue to talk to entrepreneurs is the natural way that they look at opportunities and the way that they fail to see the risk and the downside and they fail to put self-limiting beliefs on themselves. It's... you looked at the... you came from, you know, Cameroon and you moved to an entirely new country and you make your way there and then you're like, where in the world would be the best place that I could go? And it's... I tell you, I deal with a lot of young people now and they have a hard time opening their eyes to opportunities that are outside of it. Your mom must have been an incredible influence in your life. What was one or two things that she said to you over the years that stuck with you and made you who you are today? 17:22 – Embracing the 'Chosen One' Mindset: Turning Challenges into Gold Samy Sam (17:22) It's not only something that stuck with me, it's my entire family. It started with my mom, but they called me since I'm zero, "you are the chosen one." You are the chosen one, you are the chosen one. To this day, my siblings—my nephews—they all call me "the chosen one" just because they have seen me, my life facing incredibly difficult situations and getting punched so many times and managing to alchemize those situations into incredible outcomes. And because of that, because they still didn't believe that I'm the chosen one, I'm drawn to those risks because I blindfully believe that that situation, I will turn it into something exquisite. But because they told me life is a game. You have to play the game and it's not about the cards that you get dealt, it's how you play the cards. So sometimes... we'll certainly go through it later and talk about business, but it's never about you. It's like we take things so personally, especially this generation. We take things so hard and we're like, my God, I have to deal with this. But how do you reframe this in your brain? Like, how exciting—I get to play this game. How exciting—my business is failing. How do I get out of this? How do I deal with a negative situation and turn it into a positive? In French, we have this saying that says, "give me your mud, Jeff Dudan (18:27) Mm-hmm. Samy Sam (18:49) and I will turn it into gold." And my mom always said, you are the golden generation, Sammy. You are here as a prophet to liberate us. So please go and do and be you and take the craziest risk you can take because in some ways you always make it work. So I did. Jeff Dudan (18:51) Mm. Was the first business you started the talent agency? Samy Sam (19:13) It wasn't actually my first business. My first real business was... because I've always been friends with way older people than me in high school. So my first business was in Switzerland when I was sailing. So we had these crazy exams that were super hard and the people above my grade would give me—because I would play football, soccer with them—they would give me all the past exams and I would combine them together, create a system to answer the questions super easily, and I would sell them to all the students. And when I left in the last year to go to Spain for my third year of uni, I hired some of my friends who stayed and they were selling them to younger students and that financed literally all my crazy parties in Spain. That was an amazing business, but yeah, it was kind of my first steps into business. Jeff Dudan (19:47) Yeah. And then what opportunity did you see in the talent/model agency to create that business? 20:18 – First Ventures: Study Hacks Business and Launching a Talent Agency Samy Sam (20:18) So honestly, it was purely out of... I always say something that has followed me my entire life is follow your highest excitement. That's my way to be, because people say follow your passion—your highest excitement will allow you to turn anything, any hardship that you face, into something positive. Jeff Dudan (20:28) So. Samy Sam (20:45) Being an entrepreneur is being punished a hundred times a day and smiling at those punches. But if you don't like it, if you don't naturally... you are not excited... you know, if you burn out by something, it's game over. You cannot even look at that thing. So for me, when I was at uni and all my friends were talking about all this finance and going to JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and all my friends were going in that direction, I had so many friends that loved partying. Jeff Dudan (20:51) Right. Samy Sam (21:14) I think I'm a charming person. So I've always been surrounded by all these amazing women—just as a friend, because I would be a trustworthy best friend, a trustworthy brother to them. And I would come and I would say, hey, I developed this algorithm. I saw the agencies, the modeling agencies weren't doing anything on social media. So I said, let me try. But literally I was just in the library at uni. First year we make a million dollar turnover. So it's not like I had a choice. It's like I went from being at the summer school at Harvard and going on the campus of MIT with one of my friends trying to code a little bit. And that software gave us so many clients and me answering emails for one year. While I'm still doing a master's in investment management and finance in London all this time. Already it's a huge thing. And I'm like, wow, I cannot quit anymore because now I have 50 models, I don't know what to do. I call my mentor—he was a finance guy as well—he says, hey, why don't you open a company just because now you're going to pay a lot of tax. And next thing you know, I am in Cannes, all the fashion weeks. And I have all these brands calling me back and forth and we have 300 talents in the books. It was just like life took me. Jeff Dudan (22:40) Yeah. And that business ran for a time. Then tell me about how the dots connected to create Creative App and where's the gap in the marketplace. And just for background, you know, I'm very familiar that there is a gap between creators... There's all these different levels of creators out there. And there's... you could basically categorize them by number of followers. So you've got a certain number... and as they get more followers, there gets to be fewer of them. But somebody like Ronaldo, right, will do... like if he does one post, he gets some millions and millions of dollars for every post that he'll do. You know, he might have Samy Sam (23:13) Be secure. Jeff Dudan (23:35) ...billion followers or something like that, right? And then it goes down from there. And there's all these different levels and categories of influencers out there. Maybe it's regional or maybe they have a certain specific niche or product base that they'd be a good fit for. There's really... nobody's really organized the ability to connect these different influencers to the different business opportunities. And then I also know that companies have a hard time dealing with these people because if they're not represented, then are they going to show up? Are they going to do it? Are they going to comply to the standards of the clothing or the product and all of this type of thing? So it's a very fragmented marketplace now connecting commerce and products with the right group of influencers. And there's a lot of opportunity. Is that the space that Creative App desires to fill? 24:27 – Boom, Bust, and Pivot: From Agency Failure to Creative App Samy Sam (24:27) It's exactly that. How did we connect the previous business and this business? It was fate, because COVID happened, the business expanded. When you're 24, 25, 26, you're full of life. So you're like, oh my God, making 2 million, now aggregated over the space of three, four years, your business is turning over 10 million dollars. And you're like, wow, what is going on? I need to skyrocket this so I can sell it later down the line. or ask for a merger or whatever, a transactional event. And you run and you realize that now you have to look at the bottom line. And on that front, we burned. It just truly exploded in the air. And I was like, my God, how? So you go from one manager, five managers, agents, 10... you have to open offices in Paris, London, Milan, go at every single event with a crew of 300 talent. And it's just a lot. And we exploded in the air. And from that explosion, that bankruptcy, it was so painful, man. So early in my life—26—I was going to the stars. I was flying around, I was living the life. And I didn't realize that you need a strong foundation in business, a strong system to operate and trade upon. So when that happens, I'm sitting there and I'm... Jeff, I'm the luckiest man you will Jeff Dudan (25:33) Mm. Samy Sam (25:55) ever meet. So a couple of years back—maybe 10 years back—when I arrived in London the first day, I go to a nightclub, B3, because one of my friends from Switzerland said, hey, Sami, come and get with us. And I go there and some guy comes across the room and is like, who are you? Why are all these women around you? I'm like, dude, I just arrived. I have no idea. I'm just vibing and these people are around me. I don't know anybody. And he's like, ⁓ come play soccer tomorrow with me. I go play soccer with him and it's the entire JP Morgan team—all the MDs and directors. So I'm like, okay, cool. I will keep playing with them. They were 50-plus, so I was just running fast and scoring goals. So they all liked me. And during COVID, I sit down with this guy, Marc Antonio, and I tell him about all the issues my agency had, how I started studying the market. And I write theses all the time. Another big recommendation I would give to anybody: always write theses, your thoughts, your ideas, and share them with all your friends across different topics. Because from that thesis, he loved it so much, said, hey, you know what, let's try to solve it. And we spent six to eight months discussing, meeting, in and out to discuss it. And at some point he left JP Morgan, invested $180,000 to become my co-founder and build a platform and said, hey, out of this experience, how can we take those learnings Jeff Dudan (26:57) Yes. ⁓ Samy Sam (27:21) and— you are running an agency—can you turn those systems, those processes, those ways of booking, those ways of connecting with clients into a cohesive tech solution? Because in the end, you need to own a product. You go from a service to a product. So I managed to do that transformation with his help, with the support of our network. And we realized that exactly as you said today, today there is no more like marketing and influencer management. There's no way... it's the same job at every single agency, management agency. And also they all have the same clients. So we said, hey, why don't we build a marketplace that also acts as a CRM? So from a brand's perspective, it's a marketplace where they can go and find any creators and book them. But for an agency or creator, what is important to them? An agency or creator, what they like is... I have to negotiate with you. After I've negotiated and signed a contract online with you, I have to create the content, I have to attend the event, I have to do the photoshoot. Then I have to get paid and the payment has to be processed. So that's actually a simple kind of product to build. And what we end up building, it's a fintech solution where the brands come and find you and want to book you. At the end, we also process the payments and you get paid automatically. So in one app, it works like almost a bank for creators where you can have all your jobs, just like Linktree. You send the link to your profile, the brands go, sign up and can go and book you, and you get paid automatically as soon as the job is done and you have a little card where you can then withdraw the money and use it. That's how it happens. Jeff Dudan (28:46) Right. So when the talent agency bankrupted, the one thing a bankruptcy can't take away from you is your network. I can imagine that you had a deep network of people—famous people, talented people, creative people. Was that an asset that you were able to leverage into Creative App to get your first people on there? 29:33 – Rebuilding After Bankruptcy: Cleansing Network and Starting Fresh Samy Sam (29:33) So yeah, exactly. ⁓ I'm not going to lie and say that I kept all of them. Some of them I had to lose because it's a pain, but I also saw it as a very cleansing experience, I have to say, because I took it honestly as a positive experience because it's stripping you down to all the things that you don't need. Because I had all these things and my phone was ringing Monday—like Monday to Monday—from all these celebrities, all these people, but... Jeff Dudan (29:44) Yes. Samy Sam (30:02) I have to say people love your job title. They love you for your job title, not for who you are. So it really pushed away all these people. The people who stayed—the people who stayed around me and the people who managed to call me and check up on me—those people I managed to build upon them. So now the foundations are much stronger, much more real, and I feel way more fulfilled because I think that it was a period of my life that was needed. Because without that... Jeff Dudan (30:08) Huh. Samy Sam (30:32) ⁓ I always say, ⁓ a hero don't choose his suffering. That suffering is assigned to him to reveal his power. Without going to the service business and understanding how the business works... because when you're the CEO, you have to understand finance, accounting, management, hiring—all these different departments come to you. With that experience, I managed to activate my power into tech and become a full tech guy just because that suffering was assigned to me. Without that suffering, if this business would have kept going, I would still be there and I would still run around and do all these parties. While now I have a much calmer life, fulfilled and really focused on building systems for the next generation. So I use the people that I kept, I use the knowledge that I kept, and with that, it creates a beautiful new Sammy 2.0. Jeff Dudan (31:33) All right, let's play into the future a little bit. Here's the landscape: you're operating with influencers, which is going to go to 50 billion in the U.S. and 500 billion worldwide. Okay, so big market. That's one intersection. The other area where you're operating—with your next AI company—is you're operating in AI, which again is a massive opportunity. There's going to be more change in the next 24 months than there's been in the last 24 years. Business processes, creation, coding, ⁓ all of these things are gonna be happening. So you're operating in an influencer space, which is huge and growing, and you're also operating in the next AI space. When you look at AI and you look at social media, what are some of the things that you see that other people might not at this point in time? How is it going to impact influencers? Are we looking at the last generation of models that we're ever going to have? Because they can... by the way, I talked to an AI person the other day on my screen and I couldn't tell that it wasn't a real person, other than I knew that it wasn't a real person. So when you think about, again, people that became famous as actors and people that became famous as influencers and business icons and all of this stuff, who's to say that the next great famous influencer isn't gonna be baked up on somebody's computer in a faraway country and nobody will know that they're not a real person? 33:08 – AI Revolution: Virtual Influencers and the Future of Work Samy Sam (33:08) I love this question, Jeff. Can I share something on the pod? Jeff Dudan (33:11) Yes. Is this a hot take? Is this a new release? Is this an exclusive? Sammy, what are we doing? What's going on? Samy Sam (33:13) Hello? It's not... It's an exclusive. It's an exclusive. But I want to share something cool because you are... I just came here. I totally agree with you. I think... Later. I can open the settings. Jeff Dudan (33:22) Okay, you're not real. You've never been real. You've made your— Hahaha. Samy Sam (33:41) ...because people don't realize—Windows or my [system] doesn't let me share this beautiful thing with you, unfortunately, today. Presentation screen... Yes, we can, but I might have to quit and come back. Is that a thing? No, it will destroy the pod. Jeff Dudan (33:54) I don't know how to do that. Can we share? Can we share, Jen? Can we allow him to...? Samy Sam (34:09) If I quit, it could have been exclusive, but exactly what we have built is a couple of things in what you raised. First thing: an AI twin will be a thing. Everyone will have an AI twin. We'll have an avatar of themselves that goes out there and does the job for them. So what we have managed to build is: in 80 seconds now, I can create the picture-perfect replica of you. And the second part of the solution we have built is that— Jeff Dudan (34:25) Yeah. Samy Sam (34:39) Today, what is very important in this world and what is an issue that stopped AI from going out there and cloning everything is IP rights. Your right to your face is super important. Jeff Dudan (34:48) Hmm. Yeah, if you recreate me, there are a few things I'd like you to fix. Okay, can you click—? Samy Sam (34:57) You're awesome the way you are, don't worry Jeff. Jeff Dudan (34:59) ⁓ Well, just, you know— straighten— I need a little more symmetry— but yeah. So, I mean, I already have a clone and I uploaded everything into a clone to a company. And if I ask that clone a question, it will answer the question exactly as I would, but more concise, more direct, more supported. It answers better than I would, but it answers as I would. And so— Samy Sam (35:05) You— Jeff Dudan (35:29) How long until everybody creates a twin that sits in meetings for them? Samy Sam (35:35) By the end of the year. That's how fast this will go because people don't realize ⁓ one thing: the cost. So imagine when the cost of everything that you are producing drops to zero. And what we have... I'll go this time. ⁓ I think I can show you something cool. I think I managed to do it. Okay. You might have an exclusive here, Jeff. So you have a preview of one of the new solutions. So— Jeff Dudan (35:37) Okay. Mm-hmm. Do it. Yeah, here we go. Nice. You're pretty. Samy Sam (36:04) On Creatives App, what we can do... So you have this entire ecosystem that allows you to work, to collaborate with all your different clients, to collaborate with your management agency, sign your contracts, but also you can create your AI twin. And what do you do with this AI twin? You put it to work, because tomorrow what will happen? Are you going to effectively go to shoots? No, you won't go to photo shoots. What you will say is, I want to be able to work with Jeff Dudan (36:24) Mm. Samy Sam (36:33) swimwear brands, makeup brands, all these brands. On the other side, brands won't organize photoshoots, videoshoots, movies anymore. They will use platforms that will take the different avatars and pictures and measurements of all these different people and directly organize those photoshoots, videoshoots. Brands like ASOS—big brands—80, 90% of their cost goes into production. We are going to very quickly walk into a world of free production, pre-ordering, where people will see all these images with the faces of all these different models and celebrities used for those products and at the end, directly, you will get paid. So why is it cheaper? Instead of taking six months to produce the content and organize a photoshoot, it's going to take five minutes and your avatar will be working for you because— Jeff Dudan (37:05) Right. Samy Sam (37:32) ...but it will only work for the content creators who have a strong engagement rate and branding and image. Just like we are paying a lot for movie stars for real scenes we can attract, we're not gonna pay a lot of money for the guy that doesn't have an audience. So today, it's so important to take your phone, start recording every single day because that might be now we're going to move into next AI—that might be for the next 10 to 15 to 20 years, the only way you make money. Simple fact: 70% of the world runs on service-based businesses. So 70 trillion out of 100 trillion that the world makes is out of service businesses. But guess what? What will happen to lawyers, accountants, finance, real estate guys? Jeff Dudan (38:09) Wow. Samy Sam (38:30) ...when, while they are brushing their teeth, an AI agent can do the same job as them faster? And what will happen? What will happen to schools and universities when you spend 15 years mastering any programs and, you know, becoming a doctor while you can inject in your brain in four minutes PhD-level knowledge? I have tried it. I have seen it myself with my own eyes with my friends. So what will happen to that? What will happen to democracy when intelligent systems run all the policies? The politics will become like the King of India. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the policies, they will be dictated by machines. So for you as a human, you have to ask yourself those questions and say, if you rely on the government to support you, you just have to look a couple of years back during the pandemic—how did they manage this? So how would they manage something that is that disruptive and so crazy that we really need to stop asking... all of us those questions. What's happening with the world? Where are we heading? We need vision. We need strong leadership and we need commitment to building a future that is safeguarding everybody's interest, because there won't be enough money. Money won't be a thing anymore. You need to be sovereign in how you create value in this world. Jeff Dudan (39:52) Mm. Samy Sam (39:56) ...and your image is the first sovereignty that you have. Jeff Dudan (40:03) That is frightening and I share that belief and I've been having these thoughts and having these realizations about business models that simply won't need to exist anymore at some point ⁓ or getting legal work done. There's so much human that is baked into everything that we do. But as agentic AI becomes more prevalent—and I mean, it's accelerating at an accelerating rate now—people are going to be much slower to adapt to these types of changes. Samy Sam (40:45) Jeff, you know, I don't agree with that. This is how it's going to play. This is how it's going to play. The CEO of company Y will sit there and his chairman will come and say, hey, did you see that company X fired 80% of their staff and now it's powered by AI? He'll say, oh, yes, but I need to talk to unions. So maybe next year... We'll say, OK, you have three months to do the same thing, otherwise I replace you with a co— Jeff Dudan (40:48) No? Samy Sam (41:14) CEO of company Y. Humans protect their assets naturally. We are fearful beings and we are reactive beings. The formal understanding that other companies operate 100 to 150, 200% better than yours with less headache, less humans, because you pay the fine... all of them will pay the fine, without exception. Jeff Dudan (41:25) Mm-mm. Samy Sam (41:44) Imagine the chaos in the streets. You think governments will do something? We don't understand the government that is in place now. That's why for me, when I meet all of them during private dinners and have private demos all the time, I've seen so many of those products, Jeff. And it's so scary because right now people don't realize we are in like 1989 of AI, just because AI hasn't entered the economy yet. Everyone talks about intelligence. They talk about ChatGPT, OpenAI, but they're not the people that will win the AI race. They're just creating intelligence. It's like they're creating water. Who will win? It's the people that put the water in the bottle. So look at the different verticals. Look at legal, look at real estate, look at accounting, finance. So what will— Jeff Dudan (42:35) Mm. Samy Sam (42:39) And I will give you a secret that only a few hedge fund managers are starting to understand and the FANG world is starting to slowly understand. The only way that intelligence will enter the market—do you know how? ...is through SaaS, is through AI agents. So you're going to pay every month a subscription to have access to your system of intelligence. So what will replace all these legacy businesses, all this legacy real estate agency, all this legacy real estate accounting and legal firms? It's a platform like Creatives App for legal that will come and that will put AI to service clients. So imagine Jeff Dudan (42:57) you— Samy Sam (43:25) That's what H1 (Hedge Fund 1) loves doing—these roll-ups. You can acquire today a legacy accounting firm that turns over a hundred million dollars. You start implementing a SaaS and you say, 5% of the service that we deliver—our clients just need to go into this website, our website, click a button and it will drive the account for them. Then 20%, then 50%, then 100%. ...you don't need any more accountants and you will play it exactly like that. Suddenly, and it happened—if you don't look so far as banking, you look at FinTech, you have Nubank in South America. They're going to outcompete people like JP Morgan tomorrow morning. All these legacy investment banks and big banks, what they have is a lot of assets. They're sitting on a lot of assets, but they're sitting on human capital Jeff Dudan (44:06) Mm-hmm. Samy Sam (44:21) to deliver and monitor those assets. Tomorrow... so the layer upon which they are built—humans—will never outcompete tech built up. So when superintelligence, AGI, all these things come to life, people will already have the tech stack to leverage that technology, while others will have humans that they will have to fire, and they will all look left and say, hey, we need to acquire today— I recommend to any service business on this planet: go acquire a SaaS platform today, or build your internal tech team and start building it. This is the first time in the history of humanity that we are entering at the same time a financial, societal, economical inevitability. Meaning there is a circle like this in the world. This is called the AI portal, the integration of intelligence. No matter if it's today, tomorrow, in six months, in 10 years, every single human being, service, company, anything we do, will have to integrate intelligence. The singularity point is the nearest we have ever experienced. When we enter that phase, how we deliver services, how we do things, completely changes forever. People who have not... you cannot compete against something that doesn't sleep, doesn't take workdays, doesn't love kids, doesn't— you cannot compete. As simple as that. Jeff Dudan (46:03) Where are you going to point with Next.ai? Because every industry is going to be changed permanently. So for you, where are you pointing first? Samy Sam (46:19) Well, I'm pointing towards adding value in creating revenue. So as I said, what I fear the most is people not being able to feed themselves or to create a monetary or financial value so that they can, you know, be free. Financial security for me, it's one of my main works and my main art. How do I build systems that allow people to be financially free? And today we can already build the rails to build operational systems, AI agents that will allow any companies to plug their data into, let's say, a Shopify store, connecting to one of the platforms we will build, and automatically you will communicate with all these clients, optimize the different shopping experiences and you can build already those agents. But my global vision for Next.ai is to build the ecosystems of tools that for you... imagine that you have that super app that could manage your finance for you, manage your sales, manage your comms, your posts on social media, all these things. Right now you can really build—it's all about systems. And when you apply intelligence to systems, you can really today start building tools that give back ⁓ humans the time. Because for me, we never came here to work. Work has been a product of the post-industrial society. For me—and my assessment of my human experience here—we came to create, to love, to expand, to experience, and to connect. So based on that, I want to build anything that allows that. Work hasn't been a thing... You know, we still just work in a capitalist society. So you have to play the game to earn to buy your freedom. That is the entire game that we're playing. And because of that, we are so competitive with one another. We want an order, but within the next 10 to 20 years, we are going to go to the phase of buying back that time, each of us, and the society collectively will decide that money shouldn't be a thing. We have to redefine value and value creation and protect everybody because people shouldn't have to suffer. Abundance has always been in this world. Abundance is everywhere. But we love scarcity because it makes us feel better about each other, you know. Jeff Dudan (48:57) Yeah. Sammy, when you use the word services being $70 trillion, those aren't necessarily services that are performed in a home or in a business. Those are services like accounting and just everything. I mean, Apple's service business, right? So a lot of that is that. But there are things that need to be done by humans today, such as painting a house or fixing a pipe, or we all need somewhere to live. How do you see these changes... impacting those industries and where are— well, let me ask... I have a follow-up question, but let me leave that one with you right there. In services that need a human person to deliver a product or service on site somewhere, where are the opportunities in AI ⁓ what's gonna be the impact? Samy Sam (49:51) Actually, there are three industries, ⁓ three to four industries that will skyrocket. Wellness. People are going to be so lost. Imagine the identity crisis when people realize that they're not their job title, they're not the number of people they manage, they're not even their name, but they're the soul within. Imagine the soul-searching journey so many people will go through. So many people will need more of the human... Jeff Dudan (50:18) Mm. Samy Sam (50:21) ...more of, "Jeff, can we go on a walk? Can you talk to me about the craziest experience that you went through and broke your heart? Because my heart is broken right now. And I need just to understand that you also went through that and you survived. You also went through that and you overcame." That aspirational part—finding yourself and finding meaning—is gonna be so important. Certainly the biggest industry in the next 50 years. Then the tech industry is going to go through a phase of a big high until the systems understand how to evolve themselves and monitor themselves and become better. And then it's going to drop. And then entertainment. People will have time. When people have time, they entertain themselves. Sports are going to be huge. It's just the beginning of sports. All these sports are still massively undervalued. Sports are going to be huge and monumental. Jeff Dudan (51:14) Yeah. Samy Sam (51:18) And the fourth industry, as you rightfully said, is anything that robotics wouldn't disrupt. I don't want to mention anything because I still don't know how good robotics will become and how comfortable people will become with having robots all the time around them. I believe... I'm a tech guy, so I love any robotics and tech stuff, but I still don't know how the world will... ...will take that part of service delivered by robots. Jeff Dudan (51:53) If you were ⁓ advising another young person right now who's getting ready to go to university, what would you tell them to stay away from? And then what might you tell them to focus on? 52:07 – Empowering the Next Generation: Education, Strategy, and Positive Focus Samy Sam (52:07) Honestly, I would still tell them to go to university, not because of the courses—because personally I wasn't going to any classes. I had my way of studying and my way of studying was purely to pass the exam, and university has been built kind of like that. You just have to pass exams that don't mean anything. But also it gave me a way of reasoning. As you say in your book, what I absolutely love in Discernment is that going to university gives you that logic tree. So every time I have to make a decision or any decision in my life, I go very quickly... I do the probabilistic tree in my head, but at the same time, I use my EQ to take the emotional probability tree. So I did the math probability tree and then the emotional way—how would I feel? Where would this lead me? Who would be around me at the end of the journey, whether it goes very well Jeff Dudan (52:39) Mm. Samy Sam (53:04) ...or very bad. So university gives you that and also builds you the confidence, because you know coming out at 20 years old—18, 19, 20—from school, you are still a baby, even in your reflection and in your approach to life. When you go to university, you broaden that. People are underestimating the social impact and the social benefit of schools and universities, but it's much more about the social impact. Jeff Dudan (53:18) Right. Samy Sam (53:31) That's your knowledge, because your knowledge... you're going to find out what you like, what you dislike, and you're going to go all in on what you like. So first thing, go to university—very important. And we still work in a society that is based on which university you went to, that you cannot avoid. And it's a truth we live. And second thing: anything that you do today, use strategy. That's the single most important advice. Being so—anything that you do, ask strategy first. Start interacting so well with this tool. Your teacher says no, he doesn't understand anything, but it's fine. Still listen to him for the rest. But technology—we are day minus 500. So ChatGPT every single day. You have to send a message. Stop sending weird messages as well that are misspelled. Just click correct—the prompt correct—and you add your message and you send it. Start using ChatGPT every single day and go to university, because your soul will be fulfilled, your experience will be richer and you might find the love of your life at uni just like I did. Jeff Dudan (54:39) That's true. It happens to the best of us. Samy Sam (54:41) I— ...thought I was on tour or what? Jeff Dudan (54:44) So in the future that you've laid out for us here today, I would say that your relationships and your networks have made an important impact in your life—getting around mentors, getting around people, which is something that university will definitely help you start if you use it the right way. And then the other thing is creativity, because the skills that are required... people would go for 15 years to learn how to code and it's just not required anymore. I think... I've heard great coders and great business builders say, I do it to keep my hand in it, but I don't have to do it anymore if I don't want to. And those changes are accelerating at an accelerating rate. I mean, we are just, like you said, in 1989 of the AI revolution, but it's going to be 2050 here probably by the end of '26. I saw that even ⁓ chat will exceed Google in the number of searches. So now, you know, the landscape... who would have thought that? I mean, I can't imagine what Google is thinking now, right? But they've got their own tools coming out. They're obviously ahead of the game. But there are things that... there are companies and there are business models and there are practices and there are social norms that are going to be disrupted that people just didn't expect. And it's going to happen overnight. Now, we are adaptable. Right. If you throw... you take me from a BlackBerry—which, by the way... A BlackBerry was a telephone device, Sammy. Are you familiar with a BlackBerry? Okay. ⁓ So you went from a BlackBerry... you went from a pager, right, to a BlackBerry, and then you went from a BlackBerry to an iPhone. I got it. I got it in a day. You know, they say marketing leads the way. If you want to drive a company in a certain direction, you do it through the marketing. You lead a company to new business through the leads that you drive in the marketing. Samy Sam (56:13) Of course! I'm addicted to all of them! Jeff Dudan (56:38) In technology, it's the device that leads the way. Okay, so if you take away my old way of doing it and then you put an iPhone in my hand, I'm gonna learn relatively quickly how to get done what I need to get done. And then if other people are using technology, I'm gonna stop doing things the way I used to do it. So I think to your point, we will adapt relatively quickly. The difference with AI is that it's not you having to learn how to do something new. It's you're not having to do it anymore. So what do you fill that void with? You have to... I mean, the social skills, interpersonal skills, and creatives are the ones that will rule the day. Because if you can't think, we will only be... the boundaries that we will have will only be based on the limitations of our own thinking and our own creativity. Because you don't have to do it anymore. And it's really interesting. So there are certain people that are wired certain ways like yourself. ⁓ I'm a creative... this is our time to shine. Whatever we could dream before and whatever we could build before, as long as we incorporate, can now be 10X. And for people that just want to show up and check a box and check out, I'm interested as to what the world's going to have for those types of people as many jobs get... ⁓ eliminated in favor of these technology tools. Samy Sam (58:05) And you said it so perfectly. There will be ⁓ two different lines. You will have a flat line where people—because the AI will do it for them—they will stop doing anything. They'll become lazy and just stop. And the people like us, who try, try, try, try, try and learn, learn, learn, learn, learn—it's going to become exponential. All that learning we're going to be able to apply faster and easier. And by the way, I want to come back on two things you said amazingly. Jeff Dudan (58:16) Mm. Samy Sam (58:35) First thing, interpersonal skills are so important. When you go raise money, you are pitching all day, you are learning to tell stories. It's so important to articulate yourself, to have presence in a room. If you have never done that, you have never gone to university, you have never faced a bad grade just because your presentation was terrible, how do you expect that people will vouch and believe in you? We are... ⁓ We remember stories. We are a population of people—humans are storytellers. So this is so important as well. And the second aspect: the people that you will meet. When I went from my old businesses to my new business, I lost myself $1.2 million. Cash! My bank account was like, wow. And I was 27 and I looked at this and I called 19 of my friends Jeff Dudan (59:06) ...us. Samy Sam (59:34) that I met at uni, that were in class with me. They saw me grind for 10 years. 18 invested in their business. You have... university is a gift only if you make it a gift. Anything in life is a gift—the good and the bad. Your shadows are there to reveal yourself. You have to integrate your shadows into the light, because that's the game. Never feel that it's about you. Life is not even for you. Life happens as you. The more positive you are, the more reflective you are, the more engaging you are, the world reflects back. So become engaging with all these tools, become reflective with all these tools, and keep growing. Life is a constant expansion—expansion of your being, expansion of your understanding. I thought, you know, sometimes I would be crying literally and figuratively about some exams because I had to wake up at 4 a.m. with one of my friends, and we'd go to the library at 4 a.m. and we study all these things and I'm like, never in my life I'll pass an exam. Look at me. Every two months I spend literally four days every two months taking Google exams, Microsoft exams, IBM exams, all these exams on Coursera, on all these different websites, just because, you know, the world is going too fast and you have to learn. I never coded in my life. Now I'm coding every day with this. Super easy. Just because the tool... when I'm blocked somewhere, I screenshot the page, say, where am I blocked? Where is the mistake that I made? It will create the new code. What? And you're not going to take advantage of that? Dude, go out there and make money. Like, abundance. It's the age of abundance. Scarcity is over. Take—leverage this. Jeff Dudan (1:01:13) Right. I tell people that in your businesses you'll pay some people by the hour, you'll pay some people commission, but we as business builders and business leaders get paid by the conversation. And it's the quality of the conversations that we have. And it's the caliber of these conversations. And it's who we're having these conversations with that changes the slope of our line forever. And you have to be creative. You have to be thoughtful. You have to be bringing value to these people. But... What else... what could be more exciting than that in life? What could you be more passionate about? What you started with is follow something that ignites you. I forget exactly how you said it, but like you should do what lights you up. Yeah, your highest excitement. Samy Sam (1:02:08) ...your highest excitement. Yeah, follow your— So important. And you know what? Because when you follow your highest excitement, you have those eyes, you have that smile. And recently, I just went from Necker Island with Richard Branson on his island, and I was then in Marrakesh with... you know General Magic? Back in 1989, they were the first... they were a spin-off team of the entire... Jeff Dudan (1:02:18) He— Samy Sam (1:02:36) ...of Apple, and they built the Macintosh. And some of them went on to building the iPhone and all these things. And I'm always invited to all those events. And these people are always 30 to 40 years older than me, just because I smile, I have high energy and I don't only talk about my phone and dancing around. I also have something to say. I also add and contribute to the conversation. So they're like, wow, here's someone Jeff Dudan (1:02:39) Mm. Samy Sam (1:03:05) that no matter what would contribute to the energy of the room—not only physically, not only spiritually, but also intellectually. And people love that. That's the kind of people they want to be around. If you only have... that's literally my secret. They asked me the other day, what do you... like, everyone was saying, ⁓ "I brought my journal to this trip. I brought my wife to this trip." I said, I brought my smile. We are... Jeff Dudan (1:03:14) Yes. Samy Samandjeu (Samy Sam) (1:03:14) Sammy, we're like mirrors and the— Jeff Dudan (1:03:14) —reflection that people get back from us needs to be a better image than it left them with. We go out and we have curiosity and we get the advantage to go to great places and to be with great people and to have great experiences and then to get the best books early and to get those authors on this podcast and for me to get to talk to them. But if that died with me and if I didn't have the mechanism to share that with people, then it would be meaningless. Right? Because... so I have to be a mirror of a better self, a better image of that person than before they came in contact with me. So I've got to find a way to help them, to connect them with somebody, to change their view on something, to point them in the right direction. And that's what I love to do. I mean, at the end of the day, I just... I love to be in these rooms and I love to have you on the show here with us today. ⁓ Can you tell us—? Yes. Samy Sam (1:04:34) And Jeff, I have to add something about that before you continue— to add something, because I think it's very also important for the generation to understand. Jeff's team got in touch a week ago with me to organize this podcast. He already ordered my book, read it entirely, came on, listened to my audiobook. He doesn't have to do that. He's busy. I have other things to do. He has only 24 hours, but he takes time to make sure Jeff Dudan (1:04:42) Mm. Samy Sam (1:05:02) that the conversation is rich not only for himself, but for all the participants and you also listeners. And that's so beautiful. That's someone who cares. All you have to do in life is to care deeply—is to light up and look at what engaging with someone becomes. When someone is in front of you, say, my God, you care about me. You care about the human in front of you. You care about your listeners and you can feel it in every single word. So just care. It's so beautiful as an example, as a commitment and dedication, Jeff, that you are bringing to your podcast. And it's a real honor to be part of this show today. Jeff Dudan (1:05:38) Well, and thank you for... you obviously looked through my book Discernment as well. And you know, everybody gets it, but not everybody takes a minute just to look through it. And even if it's just five minutes or 10 minutes and scanning it, you can get the gist of what the book's about. So let's talk about your book for just a minute. Positive Focus. Why did you write it? Samy Sam (1:05:42) Yeah— I was in Cape Town with some of my friends—Alex Ikonn was on the pod recently—and we were with all these mega celebrities, all these people, and they all looked at me and I would walk in the street, I would go to a shop... people would walk in front of a shop with some friends, people would stand up in the shop, start clapping for me, and I would enter the shop, everyone wanted to take pictures with me—not once but so many times. Jeff Dudan (1:06:07) Mm-hmm. Samy Sam (1:06:27) So all these people started saying, my God, Samy, you are like so different. Like, we know we are famous and stuff, but you have a very special life and you have this energy where you transcend any field that you work upon. And I started reflecting and I was like, why? And I went to Coachella two, three months later ...I still had the agency at the time and I was sitting there like, oh my God, I have really seen... I'm going through a transformation inside of me. I don't know what's happening. And during the night, everyone would party, we'd come back at 3 a.m. and I started writing. I had this period of big downloads in my life. It happened very often recently and I went back and I started writing—writing. In two weeks, I wrote the entire book and it was the first time. This is, I think, the first 32 years of my life. Jeff Dudan (1:07:07) Mm-hmm. Samy Sam (1:07:20) ...were a period of self-discovery, self-mastery, understanding myself—what kind of value I want to embody, what are the roots of those values, and how do I want to connect those values and respond to the world. And after 32 years, now I moved and transitioned my being from self-mastery to flow state. And now I understand that life is not about what I want or what I need. It's a beautiful dance. It's a tango. It's like whatever comes, I have to accept it, because no matter what you believe, what agency you believe you have, God's plan will always be greater than your wildest dream. Only when you stop living with resistance—it's the resistance that causes the pain. It's the holding that keeps you there. Jeff Dudan (1:07:48) Hmm. Samy Sam (1:08:16) It's when you release and when you understand that—do your best, wake up every single day with that smile and this understanding that life will reflect as you. You know, I literally went... but to go through that phase of understanding, go through a phase of growth, I had to go through a phase of isolation, extreme loss. I ruptured my two Achilles tendons, but it set me still. It was a beautiful season, Jeff. It set me still. I was in a hospital bed for the first time in my life for almost 18 months and I had to reflect on life and say, what do I want out of this amazing experience that was given to me? And I started growing spiritually and I reached a point of understanding that in order to reach that flow state—and I reached it—and now I... all these beautiful... you know, even what I told you about AI and all these things, literally my partner was next to me one day and I started having those downloads. I was speaking, shaking, uncontrollably. I was crying. And I went the next day, woke up at 5 a.m., went on a walk in this park, and I understood all of it. It came as a big vision, and I wrote an entire line about what will happen in this world, what's the direction of the world, and how all of this will manifest. And it gave the genesis to the golden generation and project Singularity. Jeff Dudan (1:09:40) Mmm. Samy Sam (1:09:41) ...where I explain how the world will shift. And because the universe works in the way it works, one day, two weeks ago, I go to my friend's place and he tells me, hey, I'm going to visit Richard Branson on his island next week. Do you want to come? I say yes. I go to the island and I meet one of the guys who wrote a book about exactly that change. And before I read the book—where he's been talking about this for 20 years— I wrote exactly the same words. Jeff Dudan (1:10:14) Amazing, yeah. Only if we sit in awareness with our eyes open can we calm the swirl and make sense of the clarity of what we're supposed to do with ourselves. You have to be receptive, you have to be open, you have to learn how to sit in awareness, you have to understand... Samy Sam (1:10:15) You can't explain. Jeff Dudan (1:10:39) ...what matters and what doesn't in the things that are unique to you. And you can live a great life and you can make a great impact and ⁓ that self-awareness... and then the more time that you can spend in flow state—just in your unique ability, in your unique area of brilliance, and be operating within that—you don't... it's not about the hours, it's about the production. And so many times when I give myself a break and I allow and I get away and I let the universe organize itself, it will calm the swirl and I will get clarity around what I'm supposed to do and how I'm supposed to do it. And it doesn't take long to make great strides in your life, but you have to get all of the distraction... you have to find a way to get the distractions out of the way. Samy Sam (1:11:35) I tell... another advice for the generation: stop the noise, stop having people around you. At some point you need to lock yourself in a room. I'm always alone in my office. I cannot have people around me ever, because I will just walk around, sit there on the couch, open a book, turn the book, start drawing and suddenly, stroke of inspiration, I'll write uncontrollably. I will start coding uncontrollably. It's... it has to be... aloneness. Jeff Dudan (1:11:40) Yeah. Samy Sam (1:12:04) ...is a beautiful gift because your thoughts are connecting. You don't hear the noise of anybody polluting your brain. You are one with the code. We are all part of this code. We are all the same. It's like my understanding or my assessment of what's happening in the world is that we all decided to come as souls and we all decided to play this game for one last time to cure humanity from all these traumas and all the data. What we have Jeff Dudan (1:12:12) ...us. Samy Sam (1:12:33) ...done with building the internet and the web is that we have built a web of data and information about all of us. And what's happening in the world right now—and all of us putting that data into the world—is just to cure what's going to happen with the singularity and all this transformation is that we're going to arrive to a point where I call it the golden generation, because we are the ones that liberate our kids and grandkids. Because they will never know what it's like to live in fear. They will never know what it's like to live in a world with limited resources. Because we are the ones that get to build the rails toward abundance. We are the ones that get to awaken. Right now, the entire world is asleep and we can... all of us... experience all this pain and trauma and we think that it's so personal, it is so real to us, but actually it's a common experience. It's all of us suffering. ...and we get to heal. That's what we are. The last mission of humanity is oneness. It's the Apollo moment of the world, when all nations and humans are coming together as one and say, just like the Apollo mission, wow, we have the tools that can liberate every single body from these systems of scarcity. Hey, China, go build the leg, the right leg. Hey, USA, go build the left leg. Hey, Africa, go build the soul. Hey, Europe, go to build the style. It's us, we have it. What we are missing is that oneness. What we are missing is the togetherness. People are always say, I have three or four different passports. If they call me for war, I'm fighting for humanity, buddy. Don't call me because what are we fighting for? I'm fighting for my kids. My kids will have five different nationalities. My wife is half German, half British. I'm Cameroonian, I grew up all over the world. Who do want me to fight for? That's where we are. That's where we sit. Borders, where when we were going on horses. What are we doing? And I think it would just take some time for humanity to awaken to that truth that we are here to fight for each other. We are here to love each other. If we like, we keep loving that division. It's great. And people tell me, oh, I love my difference. love my, great. Let's keep loving the competitiveness that come with all being different, all being in this capitalist society. It's going to take 50 years, but I will make sure that's why I believe that I came here to be a civilization architect and to build the railroad to what it looks like next. Because even if it takes 50 years, we just have to put the next step in front of the other. Jeff Dudan (1:14:59) Yes. Samy Sam (1:15:24) And eventually, if it's not me, it's going to be my kid. If it's not my kid, it's going to be my grandkid that realized that dream and that awakening the society of abundance because we are there. Jeff Dudan (1:15:36) is a bold and powerful vision and extremely well said. I've got two questions left. I've got a curve ball and a fast ball for you. ⁓ before we do that, would you care to share with people the best way that you would like them to get connected with you? Samy Sam (1:15:42) Thank you guys. Yes, my Instagram. I am Semisam. I-A-M-S-A-M-Y-S-A-M. Reach out, send a DM. Would love to connect with anybody. Jeff Dudan (1:16:03) Okay. Awesome. I am Sammy Sam on Instagram. All right. Here's the curve ball. If you needed to gun to your head, start a business in the next 30 days and it wasn't a business that you were currently active in, what business would that be? And this is a question that says, where is the opportunity that you see that you have not acted on yet? Samy Sam (1:16:33) building communities and wellness. Wellness is simply, you know, the... the medication to the soul. The meant any of it, all of them, is just build, just focusing your time. And also because it doesn't take long, it takes a friend. Hey, let me message that friend to see how he is. Let me organize the work. Let me organize. I have one of my friends that gave me the best line the other day. He I'm not a hustler, I'm a matcha drinker. Jeff Dudan (1:16:45) mental, physical, spiritual. Samy Sam (1:17:08) Start going around and drinking matcha with your friends and building that community of matcha drinkers. Start having those discussions because now that you're having those discussions with one, you refer another friend and all together you go on that road. Very soon, what all of us will need is to seek among the community and know that we are not alone. So many times when I was going through the hardest time in my life, The best, best thing that has happened to me is, as you said, being able to call my mentors, being able to call the elders, being able to sit with them and say, hey, I'm going through this. And they said, me too. You are not alone. And the aloneness that those tough experiences we're going toward will bring. Wow. We need a lot of people to just focus on making sure that human being stays at the center. of everything that we build around. We are here to, you we prevail, we are the best, but we need to make sure that we mentally, spiritually and physically, we remain in that position. Jeff Dudan (1:18:06) Mm. Perfect. Last question, right down the middle. If you had one sentence to offer somebody to make an impact in their life, what would that be? Samy Sam (1:18:29) When you had your lowest, lowest, I was at my weakest point, my left Achilles and my right Achilles part, I was playing football, part. What kept me alive and what kept me going is simply one step a day. The lowest part is actually the pivot point in your life and whatever come after, you know, I was just visualizing, oh my God, what's come next is the best thing in my life. And in order for you to reach the best thing in your life, do one step of the day and have faith in the universe. Have faith that God chose you to live this experience. God chose the best, best and highest version of you. So even if it is the craziest, most shameful, most painful, most incredibly bad experience that you are going through, Believe that that experience is there to teach you something about yourself and that God wants you to raise to your highest self because of that experience. Your shadows are what reveals you. So please don't give up and do one step a day. Just that, one step a day. Jeff Dudan (1:19:46) Sammy, you are a gentleman and an incredible thinker and I have enjoyed this very much. Thank you for being on the home front. Samy Sam (1:19:49) Thank you, Jay. Me too, Jack. Thank you very much for having me. Jeff Dudan (1:19:57) Absolutely. This is ⁓ Jeff Dudan with Sammy Samandjeu and we have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.

From Probation Officer to Beauty Brand Powerhouse: Melanie Richards on Risk and Reinvention

July 21, 2025
EPISODE SUMMARY Melanie Richards, founder of GoGlo and former probation officer, joins Jeff Dudan on the Homefront to talk about her unexpected leap from public service to entrepreneurship. This episode explores the harsh realities of domestic violence advocacy, the gritty startup story behind GoGlo’s mobile tanning business, and the raw truths of franchising from someone in the trenches. It’s an unfiltered look at leadership, resilience, and the long game of building something that matters. KEY TAKEAWAYS The Sun Isn’t Your Friend: Melanie explains the health risks of UV tanning and why safe alternatives like GoGlo’s airbrush tans are booming in the wellness space. Public Service Burnout Is Real: After a traumatic career in domestic violence probation, Melanie reached a breaking point that pushed her into entrepreneurship. Spray Tans with Soul: GoGlo was built with $5K on a credit card and grew from mobile pop-ups to a fast-scaling franchise — proving grit and glow can co-exist. Franchising Is Not for the Faint of Heart: Melanie opens up about the emotional toll of transitioning from solo founder to franchise leader and learning to let go. Founders Need Mentors: Melanie credits her support system, including Jeff Herr and Eric Van Horn, for keeping her grounded through the “third ring of hell.” Power Couples Win: Though GoGlo attracts mostly women, it's often husband-wife teams that are building the most successful units. FEATURED QUOTE "If it was just about money, I wouldn’t be doing this. This is my heart, this is my soul — I don’t share it lightly." FULL TRANSCRIPT Introduction: Jeff Dudan (00:04) Welcome to the Homefront. I'm Jeff Dudan. If you spent a decade as a probation officer specializing in domestic violence advocacy and rehabilitation and built a model that was replicated nationwide, if you recognized a need in the safe tanning market and founded GoGlo in 2010, revolutionizing the airbrush tanning industry and ultimately expanding through franchising, your name can only be Melanie Richards. Welcome. Melanie Richards (00:38) Thank you. That's a great intro. Jeff Dudan (00:39) Well, it's yours. You've earned it. You did the whole banana. Melanie Richards (00:43) I did. I did. The Dangers of Traditional Tanning & The Safe Sun Movement Jeff Dudan (00:46) All right, Melanie, how big of a health risk is traditional tanning and what does GoGlo do to alleviate some of these risks? Melanie Richards (00:57) Yeah, I just recently a whole bunch of information has been coming out about not only UV and the traditional tanning beds, but also the sun. It's one in four will develop some form of a skin cancer. So there's early detection, which is fabulous. We've done a really good job on. you know, making sure the public is aware of that. you know, if you're around my age, I've just celebrated my 50th birthday and back in my day, we were hitting the tanning beds and it was no shame in that game. Well, it's kind of coming around full circle and right now with, know, GoGos positioning on skin health and everything, ⁓ it's a good time to be ⁓ in this industry, particularly because of the attention that it's getting on the wellness side of it. Jeff Dudan (01:45) Are there risks from sunblock products as well as the sun? I look, we grew up, I grew up in the 70s as well, or I'm older than you, but so I grew up in the 70s. You grew up in the 80s, probably. But we ran, I mean, I have sun damage on my shoulders. I have to go get checked. It's we just ran out all day with our shirts off. And then all of a sudden this suntan lotion industry came out and then everybody Melanie Richards (01:55) Well. Jeff Dudan (02:13) is painted white and all of that. I mean, any product, anything done to excess has to have negative consequences, especially things applied to our skins. How safe are these products that people use to protect themselves from the sun versus the sun itself? And again, your solution, when you have a spray tan, and we'll get into exactly how you do it and what it is, does that act also as a sunscreen? Melanie Richards (02:43) you caught me on this one. Cause there's a, there's a little known fact ⁓ that in our solution, there is a, a sunscreen component to it. I would never say that you're protected because you have a go glow. ⁓ And to speak on sunscreens, I think that it is a very important conversation. I make sure that my children, if they're out for an extended amount of time, you know, they're very lily white Norwegians. And that they are protected because I do remember like you, you know, being out at the lake and Like I don't know how many times my nose boiled from peeling in the shoulders and it was just not a thought about it. I do advocate for a safe sun. Sun, you do need vitamin D and you do want to get that sun. It's good for your body to receive that. We are not trying to completely get people out of the sun and douse yourself in all kinds of different products. What it is is just a method to where somebody like myself who's very fair, I'm not going to get brown tan. I'm going to burn, I'm going to peel, and then I'm going to be back at pink, you know? So I am a proponent of safe sun. And there is a huge conversation around sunscreens and making sure you're looking at ingredients and what those ingredients are. There's mineral sunscreens, there's physical, there's chemical. And a lot of people are most more recently, I think it's because of there's so many different additives and foods, and we can go off on a tangent on that. But A lot of people are getting more sensitive skin and they're getting more sensitive to different ingredients. And so I'm a huge proponent of making sure that you're spinning the bottle around and educating yourself on what ingredients you're putting on your skin. Tanning Pills, Spray Tans & the Science of Skin Health Jeff Dudan (04:21) tanning pills work? I've got some friends and they take these, they say, take these pills and I say, you look, you look really tan. It's, it's winter. You know, how did you get that tan? He says, I take these tanning pills. What are, what's inside of those and do those work? Melanie Richards (04:29) Mm-hmm. Yeah, those are not FDA approved. They have not been by any means. So it is not something that I would advocate for by any stretch of the imagination. it is is is accelerating your body's natural ability to produce melanin and melanin really what when you see somebody with a natural sun tan, that is just your body ⁓ kicking out melanin to protect itself. a tan. Jeff Dudan (04:37) Okay. Got it. Melanie Richards (04:59) on the beach, laying out for hours, that's sudden damage and it's your body's response to protect itself. Life or Death: Melanie’s Years in Domestic Violence Probation Jeff Dudan (05:07) So today, Melanie, you're an emerging franchisor. I'm not sure exactly how many units you've got out there. I know that you're with a good group that's helping you with the business, I can only assume. And you started your business in 2010, I believe. But prior to that, you were a probation officer for 10 years. Walk us through, I'd love to hear just a little bit about how you grew up. You grew up in Minneapolis? Melanie Richards (05:15) Mm-hmm. Yes. I grew up up in Duluth, so even further north, at Canadian border. Jeff Dudan (05:37) Okay. And then how what what was it that attracted you to law enforcement as an early career? Melanie Richards (05:44) Yeah, I was raised, my mother had my sister and I before she left high school. So we are the traditional single mother and team mom, I call her like the OG team mom, before there's cameras in everyone's faces. ⁓ But you know, welfare, food stamps, the three of us, made it through. My grandfather, who helped raise me, he was a higher patrolman and he was a pilot for them. And he's just really my strong role model. And ⁓ that side of my mom's family, have you know, uh, state troopers, have deputies. So law enforcement just kind of ran through my, my veins. Um, and it was very interested in people and, um, communities. And so when I went to, when I graduated from high school, I went up to college, went down to the cities, went back to college at UMD in Duluth. And I studied criminology, sociology and psychology. And when I graduated, my, my, uh, I don't know what they call them. Their counselor sat me down and I was like, well, you know, Honestly, I don't know why I think about this. like, what am going to do with this? And he's like, well, you can be a police officer or, you know, there's, there's probation. And I was like, great. ⁓ And I happened to move out to San Diego and my neighbor out there was a juvenile probation officer. And he said, know, juvenile corrections is hiring in the juvenile hall here. And so I applied and I did my post training there and spent a few years in the juvenile probation or the juvenile hall in San Diego. working with 10 to 15 year old boys and I was rocking and rolling. That place is no joke. So a girl from Minnesota ⁓ out there in the big bad world, I got thrown in pretty quickly. And then, know, Minnesotans were kind of deeply rooted. I came back home and I started working in the adult field. I was doing investigations through that. I was working on cases for domestic violence and I was seeing a lot of indicators of basically the system not responding to the safety of women and children. It was more focused on the offender and ⁓ the victims were sort of just left behind. A lot of times we would also get women coming in who have used violence at that time, so then she gets arrested as well. ⁓ And the way the system is set up for domestic violence, is tailored to the high percentages of men against women. And so... I developed a caseload for battered women so that we could more holistically take a look at those needs and for safety. ⁓ So along those lines, I started working. We developed a domestic abuse service center, which is replicated across the country now, but this was way back in, gosh, I wanna say. 2000 or so. And it was myself as the probation officer, I worked with a sergeant in the police department and then a prosecutor. And so what we would do is we would take a look at every single case that came through overnight in the city of Minneapolis. And if that offender had fled the scene, we would go ahead and run all the searches we could find. We would try to build the case. I would issue the warrants. And then we would try to bring the victim in. and get her some safety and working for orders protection, all that sort of thing. So long winded. Jeff Dudan (08:58) this was all domestic, in-home domestic abuse situations. Okay. Melanie Richards (09:03) Yes. Yes. ⁓ and so, you know, I, I was working in, very, ⁓ every single day was life or death. ⁓ every single day was really traumatic. ⁓ you know, and so it got to be very heavy. ⁓ I had a case where I had issued a warrant and it became a situation where he was stalking her. ⁓ we're basically stalking him to try to get to him and he got to her and her family first. And, and I woke up on a Sunday morning to a headline of a triple homicide and yeah. Jeff Dudan (09:31) Ugh. Melanie Richards (09:32) and he had killed her, her mother and her grandfather. And at that moment, I knew I couldn't fight any longer in this system that really ⁓ is up against people like me who want to enact change. You're not gonna get too far, sadly. Jeff Dudan (09:50) I'm interested to your perspective on this because now that you've been away from it for a number of years, there is a lot of gnashing of thought around reform right now in our governmental agencies, in our prisons, in our probation system. Everything is, it seems like everything has opened up. Everything is being looked at. with a fresh set of eyes, AI technology certainly helps us think better, faster, do things differently. Looking back at the probation system or the areas that you operated in, if you were gonna say, this is the reform that's needed there, what would one or two things be that you think would help? Systemic Reform & the Problem with “How It’s Always Been” Melanie Richards (10:34) ⁓ Honestly, the entire system really needs to be from top to bottom, bottom to top. What I was up against wasn't just, I mean, honestly, the criminals, they are who they are. was truly the people sitting in the chairs. Did they actually care ⁓ or was it just their career that they're sitting in at that moment? And so I think the recruitment around who is in that system, who are the probation officers, who are the judges, are the judges being held accountable for these decisions that they're making are truly dangerous at times. ⁓ You know, I think that was the most disheartening part of the career is ⁓ not seeing the same amount of care ⁓ for humanity. Jeff Dudan (11:10) Hmm. Melanie Richards (11:28) It sounds very huge, but at the same time the responses I would get when I knew that a woman was literally life or death getting into a situation and it was just passed off. It was sitting on somebody's desk or something like that. A lot of work has gone into domestic violence and a lot of it has been ⁓ with VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act, there's a lot of federal money ⁓ being poured into it. ⁓ And I do have a lot of hope for it. You know, there are a lot of people are so passionate in that realm, but at the same time, ⁓ I do feel concern for people who don't understand the criminal system and ⁓ by horrible chance, they become a victim and then they are thrown into something and they're like, wait a minute. I have supported, you know, that there was a criminal justice system, but true. To be honest, the only real justice is for the criminals at this point. Jeff Dudan (12:28) Unfortunately, so many things come down to economics, come down to budget, and then people just get worn down. I'm thinking about the foster care system. And there's incentives in the foster care system that I... keep kids in suboptimal situations because of how the money flows, what's available, and you get good people that get in the system and they work at the best they can, but they're kind of tied up in a web of red tape and the way it's always been done. I just wonder as a society, when we look at areas that have gotten so bureaucratic and then there's political motivations that are going going to keep things from being changed. Nobody wants to ⁓ stick their neck out for change. ⁓ And then inside of that, where's the education for people ⁓ early on? Where's the early intervention in domestic violence? How are the warning signals seen? And you see things happening in schools and all these situations. There's almost always, somebody saw it. Melanie Richards (13:39) Yes. Jeff Dudan (13:39) Somebody always saw it coming and it's just a matter of you know, anything left to itself will always go from bad to worse I've learned that in business. Those are that's my failed business lesson right there Anything anything ignored and left to itself will always go from bad to worse, but it's it's ⁓ marriages personal situations any relationship ⁓ and You know, it's it's you know, it's interesting to see you know how we evolve as a country. I mean, I think it's probably Melanie Richards (13:41) I'll see you Jeff Dudan (14:09) I mean, if you look at the statistics, the world's safer than it's ever been. There's less people starving than there's ever been, but there's still too much. Melanie Richards (14:18) Right. And I, you know, there are a lot of, you know, you hit on so many different things that are just clicking in my head because, Jeff Dudan (14:26) Tell me in another way that I just asked a bad question. Melanie Richards (14:30) I know. I love these conversations because it literally, you open up this can and you're just like, yes, and this and this, because I have seen the foster care system, the child protection system, the pay to play, just the truly disturbing nature ⁓ of how many years this has gone by with people covering things up and ⁓ our children are caught in it. And it is a cycle of violence. It's a cycle of drugs. It's government. It's politics, unfortunately. And so, yeah, you put a quarter on me and I got things to say. Jeff Dudan (15:11) I had a mentor that shared with me one time something I've never forgot is that everybody always will work to their comp plan. however somebody's getting paid, however somebody's getting incentivized, if they want to protect their salary ⁓ and it just takes following the plan and looking the other way and doing the minimum, then people will do that. And people, unfortunately, upsetting the apple cart kind of upsets the whole system. ⁓ speaking, go ahead. Melanie Richards (15:18) and get up. And that speaks to what I was saying. didn't say it as well as you did, but truly the people working in that field, you're only going to get the best of what they choose to do. And so that you hit it right on that. Jeff Dudan (15:57) Speaking of mentors and coaches, I read in your story that you joined something called the Aveda Institute. Can you tell us what that is? Melanie Richards (16:05) VEDA. Yeah, so Aveda is ⁓ world known, I mean worldwide. It's a, a herbaic, more natural holistic, horse run rock and buck, I'm not gonna say his name right, but he founded it and he found it in Minneapolis. And so we're sort of the base of Aveda, but now Aveda is across, you know, all, and they have a school and they do hair and they do, ⁓ as theology, but it's more of a natural. study of how to basically go through cosmetology and this study of skin and ingredients. And so I really found a good place there. The Accidental Entrepreneur: GoGlo’s Origin Story Jeff Dudan (16:44) And was that fundamental to you thinking about? ⁓ natural, the, the tanning that you, that you do with go glow now. I want to get into that story of, I read a story that you, you got a spray tan, you went to Mexico and you loved it so much. And you said, I'm, you know, Hey, they can barely tell I'm from Minnesota down here. And you know, had this great tan and you said, can, and it was at that same time, you were looking to make a career change and get into something else. Talk to us about that time in your life, because I have this supposition about entrepreneurs. Melanie Richards (17:05) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (17:18) that ⁓ many entrepreneurs, first of all, your background with how you grew up is perfect for an entrepreneur, right? That's how all, we were all, we all had challenges and so our level of risk and the way we view downside, if you grow up in a safe place, you have a certain relationship with risk is that you've never really had to take any and you get fearful of it. But if you grow up, a little less structured and a little less supported, then it's like, well, if this all blows up, I can just start over again because I've done it before. You can't get any lower than where I started. I mean, I know that if everything went away and I was broke again today, that it would take me no time at all to build it back. So when you get that fear out of it. And then I also believe many entrepreneurs are kind of screwed into existence by circumstances. There's more. Melanie Richards (17:55) Yes. Jeff Dudan (18:12) month at the end of their money. They're they can't work ⁓ in a situation so they end up starting some sort of a business. Stacey Madison, who founded Stacey's Pita Chips, was one of our early podcast guests and she had to she was in Boston and she started a food cart and she was she was doing pitas and she was just working on the corner and rented a pita cart and they had all this leftover bread. So she went home and in her oven in her apartment made the leftover pitas into pita chips and put seasoning on them and started selling them and then people would come by and say, you have any more of those chips? And then she rented a commercial space and she just started making the pita chips and ended up being a $250 million deal for her. I mean. Melanie Richards (18:56) Yep. That's exactly, yeah. I ⁓ don't know. The switch of, wasn't looking for a new career. I knew I was absolutely ⁓ burned on ⁓ the career I was in. And I honestly just wanted something completely different, right? Because I'm dealing with a whole set of... ⁓ you know, society, shall we say. And there wasn't a lot of positivity around it. There wasn't much happiness, you know, it was very tough to go. ⁓ And, you know, when I chose to go to Aveda, it was more of like, I want to be around people who are more creative. I want to be around people who ⁓ are happier, who are just in general, ⁓ more curious about things that aren't criminals and, you know, in violence and where I was currently operating in. ⁓ And so I did find, you know, I was interested in makeup. was interested in, you know, that art form. ⁓ and the, the, to be able to go to Aveda was, great. ⁓ of course, but it didn't, it didn't lead to, ⁓ spray tanning. That was honestly me just wanting to look good. So that's what happened. You know, I got, I was celebrating my graduation from, from Aveda and I got a spray tan and you know, at the time it was, it was, it was kind of the mystic tan blues where they can lock you in and you can't breathe. And I'm too fair to have that kind of solution fired at me. And so it like a lot of trauma around that. And that's why I just, found a makeup artist and she was, applied it by really small brush, an airbrush. But at the end of it, you know, was, I had the tinge of brown, not orange. And I was feeling good. I got into Mexico. I could wear my cute swimsuit. I could wear my, you know, dress on dresses and I didn't, you know, stand out like a glaring, you know, snow globe. And I was just like, wait a minute. This feels too good. I know so many people that want this, know, that why wouldn't why wouldn't I give this a try? And you know at that time I maxed my credit card and my credit card max was $5,000. Let's be real. So I was like, nah, I'm going for it. I maxed out my credit card. I bought this really heavy air compressor, weighed like 70 pounds, found some solutions online and I just, you know, I trained myself and, and my sister, my friends, it started to be this thing where it's like, Hey, Mal, I need one. I know I need one now. And so I thought to myself, well, you know, the quickest way to get to anybody is to get mobile. And so I, after work, I would just throw my machine in my truck and I'd pop up in people's homes. And I had the best conversations with people and it was just so rewarding. ⁓ and it honestly, it just, kept going and I don't know how to stop. Jeff Dudan (21:37) You started as a mobile service. At what point did you move into a physical location? From Truck to Storefront: Building a Scalable Brand Melanie Richards (21:42) So I started, it was about four years in, I had scaled the mobile business to four vehicles. had about eight employees and with Minnesota we have road construction, have blizzards, know, all this. So was really hard to start getting to people and maintaining that demand. And so in 2014, I went into a solar salon and at that time, know, it was hair, you know. Jeff Dudan (21:49) ⁓ Mm-hmm. Melanie Richards (22:07) predominantly and, but I just thought to myself, said, well, if I can pop into people's houses, why wouldn't I be able to do this in a salon suite? And we did. And within a few months, know, solo was like, you know, this, probably isn't going to work out because our hallways are crowded. You're doing 20 minute appointments. You know, I'm just rolling chicks in and out. was so fun. But at the same time it was, ⁓ you know, we couldn't keep up with demand. so. I, I, within the year I did my first storefront and that had three rooms. thought we're going to triple this. It'd be great. And within that year, it was six rooms. I'm blowing out walls. And so it's, it's, it really took off. want to say in 2015 or so. Jeff Dudan (22:50) Was it always branded GoGlo? OK. OK. Melanie Richards (22:52) It was glow mobile at the beginning. Yeah. You know, I, look back and, know, honestly, I absolutely love it. The website was, um, know, WW go, go glow.co it's always been that, um, but glow mobile, you know, naming yourself glow anything in the spray tan industry is very, you're not going to stand out very far. Um, and so right on 2017, I was going to open up in river North. in Chicago and so I went through a rebrand. was starting to make some really good money and so I started looking at my skincare line. I developed my own skincare line, my own equipment and everything and so I was like, no, we need to do a full rebrand and that's when I started to really put my mind around having a national brand. Jeff Dudan (23:37) What is the customer experience today when somebody walks into a location? Melanie Richards (23:42) Yep. So when somebody walks into a Go Glow, our salons are bright, crisp white. That's a complete opposite of what the industry has seen for the past 50 years. What you generally are going to experience in a spray tan salon, it's going to be in either a brown room, dark room, because they're hiding sort of all of the solution that's getting everywhere. We can talk about the equipment that I've got. ⁓ And so it's a bright white. And so immediately when people walk in, they're like, ⁓ Jeff Dudan (24:02) Bye. Melanie Richards (24:09) because it's just a statement of clean beauty and clean everything. Everything is black and white and they meet with our spray technicians and get greeted and then we walk them back and we have a good conversation about how did they prepare for their go-glow. You know, with a spray tan you have to make sure that your skin is prepared and so we go through a lot of... you know, what products they're using. in that time, we get a chance to educate people on different products that they're using and how it may not be actually beneficial for their skin. And then we apply the Go Glow solution and we, you know, make sure that they're powdered and dried and feeling good. And then they are good to go. Jeff Dudan (24:39) Hmm. How long would something like that last typically? Melanie Richards (24:53) Typically it's five to seven days. it's, if you're just, you know, getting any old spray tan on and you're not going to care for it, you're not going to care for your skin. You're not going to, you know, it is something that you have to care for. Um, it's, you'll probably get five days out of it. Oh, with a go glow, we definitely push it to between seven, 10, 12 days. Yeah. Jeff Dudan (24:55) Okay. Okay. I guess you have to be let it set up for a while. Does it set up immediately or do you have to not shower for 12 hours or something like that? Melanie Richards (25:21) Yeah, so the active ingredient in a spray tan is ⁓ dihydroxyacetone, which is DHA, which sounds really technical and chemical, but what it is is just a molecule that's taken out of a sugar beet. and that reacts with amino acids that are already on your skin and the proteins and that oxidizes. like, say you cut an apple and it browns, it's that same process. So it's a natural process happening on your skin. And so that, the DHA will work on your skin for up to 24 hours. So depending on the percentage of DHA, and that is where we customize for each individual skin tone of how much DHA that their skin should be able to process at. Jeff Dudan (25:55) Mm-hmm. Who's a typical customer? Is this a, I don't know what the price point is, but is this available to everybody or do you have an avatar that you service more than others? Melanie Richards (26:11) Yeah. mean, predominantly women because we do figure quicker than men. I'm just kidding. ⁓ Predominantly women right now, but you guys are catching up. I do like to see it. ⁓ but it's probably women. ⁓ it literally, I think that, right now our center mass of the most, ⁓ Jeff Dudan (26:14) Sure. Melanie Richards (26:33) age of people would be between 25 and 50. So it ranges all across. It is ⁓ not a service that just for the wealthy or for, it's truly for everybody. mean, during prom season, are pecking the walls, and that's a very good thing to see for the young people who are very into skincare right now because of TikTok. ⁓ Jeff Dudan (26:50) ⁓ yeah. Mm-hmm. Melanie Richards (27:00) I like to see it. They are taking care of their skin and they're looking at ingredients and everything. know, GoGlo is honestly, it's kind of crossing all the barriers. Jeff Dudan (27:09) Yeah. So I've built some businesses in fitness also in the infrared sauna space. And one thing to do that we looked at was how do we get different shares of wallet, whether that be supplements or personal training or other packages or things like that. How do you create more opportunities for your franchisees to monetize their clientele? Melanie Richards (27:15) Mm. Yeah, with Go Glow, we are a service industry. we perform a service of an airbrushed hand, but we're also a skincare business. so percent of the revenue is going to come from your skincare sales. And so we have a product line that is very specific to ⁓ Go Glow and I keep very core in. Jeff Dudan (27:39) Okay. Melanie Richards (27:50) products. I don't want like a hundred skews of anything. It's not just a huge money grab. It's basically, you know, core products that we really encourage and educate our client base on so that they can not only just have a great go-go, but that their skin is healthy regardless. Jeff Dudan (28:11) Why don't you first start franchising? Real Talk: Franchising Is Not Easy Melanie Richards (28:14) July of 2023. Jeff Dudan (28:16) So I have OK, so this is fresh. Melanie Richards (28:18) Yeah, very fresh. Yes. Jeff Dudan (28:23) First impressions? Melanie Richards (28:26) It's a... Jeff Dudan (28:27) Be honest, no one's ever gonna listen to this. Melanie Richards (28:31) It's, it's, is, it is, ⁓ it has, it has been difficult. I, you know, I, you take somebody who's an entrepreneur and, kind of doing their own thing in their own way and their own everything for, ⁓ you know, as many years as I have it. And then to then become basically, ⁓ you, you have to, you have to change a lot of things about yourself. I think, I love to learn a lot of patience. ⁓ lot of, you know, really there's a lot of, franchise think attracts a lot of different people ⁓ and being able to play the same sandbox is very important. And, ⁓ you know, growing this fast, we have, I want to say 90 sold already. And so we're ripping pretty quickly, but Jeff Dudan (28:58) you Now is that units or is that owners? Okay. Melanie Richards (29:25) That's units. Yeah. We have, I want to say 30. So generally they'll do like a three pack. ⁓ yeah. And so, you know, I have, it's, it, I'm, I'm not going to lie. It's been probably, you know, two of the most difficult years of my life and I've been through some stuff. ⁓ Jeff Dudan (29:29) Okay. Yeah. Melanie Richards (29:43) It's hard for, I would say, a founder who is incredibly, and I think a lot of us are, right? We do this out of love and passion and to switch that into a different corporate model is very, it's taxing on your soul. Jeff Dudan (30:01) It is. Well, I just encourage you ⁓ not to get discouraged. It's a steep learning curve in franchising. ⁓ You can never anticipate, you would never expect to have to have the conversations that you're going to have to get this deeply into franchise owners' lives, ⁓ to deal with Melanie Richards (30:08) Yeah. Thank Mm-hmm. Jeff Dudan (30:30) so many different levels of commitment, so many different levels of skill. And, you know, there's you can't can't you can't manufacture those things out of the process. It's just I mean, it's there's some tried and true numbers in franchising. And, you know, people just have to be up for it. And you have to be like every day. It's like, you know, it's it's there's going to be some aspect of every day that's going to be conflict. And generally, 90 % of the people, if not 95 % of the people, are well-intentioned. They want to do well. They're looking for guidance. They have to come to terms with the fact that they can't just make this business, this go-glow business, into some variation of the career that they came from. So there's this change management. But you also can't hit them over the head with it, because they have to come to it themselves. Melanie Richards (30:57) Yes. Founders, Franchisees & The Leadership Challenge Jeff Dudan (31:25) It's very nuanced. is a leadership level that has so many facets to it. And then if you're going fast, like you are, then it's coming at you fast. People are hitting things at different points in time. And it's a real challenge. If there's somebody that was going to start franchising in 2026, ⁓ what lessons learned? What would be some of the lessons learned that you might impart upon them? Some wisdom that you've picked up to this point. Melanie Richards (31:55) ⁓ You have to really ⁓ have a good sense of self because ⁓ you'll be questioned, you'll be dragged, you'll be, you know, it is very difficult emotionally. It is very difficult emotionally to ⁓ share something like this with people that come from all walks of life and they're investing a lot of money and the stakes are very high. ⁓ And you can never predict completely, you know, when people come to confirmation day and you really, you don't know at the end of the day who is going to be the one that's going to go off the rails. I mean, I wish I could. ⁓ And you don't know the ones who are, you can really, I think. Jeff Dudan (32:37) Right. Melanie Richards (32:45) I can see, I'm really starting to hone in more closely around the ones that I believe will follow the process. And when you have an emerging brand, you are ⁓ almost more susceptible to people coming in and thinking that maybe they know more than you. And because they got in at the ground, they're going to tell you how things are going to be done. And if it's not done that way, well, then we're all going to hear about it type of thing. ⁓ Jeff Dudan (32:53) Mm. Melanie Richards (33:12) It's very difficult in the beginning. mean, an emerging brand is, wow, is, ⁓ it'll rip your soul out, honestly. It is, is very, very difficult. If you don't have people around you that have been in franchising for a long time, I do not recommend going at it alone. You have to have people who know the industry inside and out because there are sharks everywhere. Jeff Dudan (33:37) I think that is a good lesson learned right there. You know, it took me really 15 years to get my first brand to market. It took me, from the time that I hired a franchise attorney, we refranchised in 2006, seven and eight. We sold our company stores under a franchise model in three states. And then we launched in 2009. And then I sold the business January 1st, 2019. had 240. Melanie Richards (34:06) Mm. Jeff Dudan (34:06) restoration type franchise. We were in the service industry and then ⁓ Melanie Richards (34:10) Mm. Jeff Dudan (34:12) We've built so many companies. I can accomplish now in 15 months what it used to take me 15 years. Just because of knowing like, you know what, and the thing is, is what you can never lose is you have to love them all. I mean, like you have to love them, like you have to find a way to show up to that conversation, even though like this person's, you're gonna have antagonists that, Melanie Richards (34:18) Yep. Yes. Jeff Dudan (34:40) nothing's ever right, nothing's ever good enough, then you're gonna have a handful of people that no matter what you give them, they're gonna make lemonade out of it, they're gonna be your biggest cheerleaders, and then you're gonna have this huge group in the middle of people that are looking one way or the other. They're looking at the leaders, at the sled dogs, or they're looking at the antagonists and they're trying to figure out who they are. And what happens, and then over time, as you have leaders, at some point, If you can survive it, people will stop questioning the model. It does happen. mean, you like, Catherine Monson with Fast Signs, I think is one of the greatest CEOs in our industry. She writes handwritten notes to every, they have 1,100 franchisees, every birthday, every anniversary. over nine years, she shares, she says, we stood up and we said, We want to increase it. were about 11 % profit and they said we want to increase our profit by 15 % or 50 % and it took them nine years working together as a group of franchisees to get their profit to maybe the 18 19 % it is right now. But like it's you know, there's there's the I'm stealing this but there's the there's the top line. There's the bottom line and then there's the front line. And one thing I do, we have about 250 franchise owners at Homefront brands. We, by the way, we had 20 in March of 23. Yeah, and I'm still alive. Look, I'm still alive somehow. So, well, but no, but I mean, I was on a call with somebody this morning that moved over from another country and started the business. And, you know, so when somebody moves from one town Melanie Richards (36:08) Wow, that's amazing. I know, like. Yes. Jeff Dudan (36:29) to a new state they've never been in before and they start a business, what they underestimate is the fact that they don't have a network. And they don't have friends and family that are gonna try it, they don't have a church, they don't have a Lions club that they can go to and they can get the word spread out, they don't know anybody. And it's very difficult, especially if you're in the service industry, move to a new town and start a business. Well, these people moved over from Germany. And there's a language barrier. And they don't know... Melanie Richards (36:35) Yes. Jeff Dudan (36:57) You know, they may or may not really understand how business even works here. So they've had a slow start. that surprise? Should we have placed them? I'm not sure. You know, I think we just turned somebody down that was moving, that just moved here from South Africa. Yeah. And it's just like, and they're like, we don't even know how business works here. And I'm just like, well, maybe you should come back in a year and try something else for a little bit and whatever it is. But at the end of the day, you know, getting on the, you know, it's it's as long as you show up in their life and as long as they can look you in the eyeball and talk to you like that's the that's the Melanie Richards (37:21) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (37:35) You can never abdicate the personal connection that you've got to have. now I've got five to seven calls every week, picked at random, just cycling through. And it takes me a year to get through everybody. But like at the end of the day, I never want them to say they haven't talked to me for a certain amount of time. And then there's regional meetings and there's homecoming and then there's advisory committees and all of that stuff where you show up. But it's a real game of advanced ⁓ leadership. It's adult learning, it's influence, it's politics, keep that as low as you can, but at the end of the day, it's a real leadership challenge to build a brand, and then especially when you're growing fast like you are, and you have proof of concept, so your stores, right, I imagine your stores, you have proof of concept, but it's still, you've gotta get people that started from ground zero. and had the kind of success that you've been able to experience. And you'll get there. It's at the end of the day. ⁓ Is there any particular things that you've learned from a leadership style or certain tactics that you've learned that work particularly well for you in connecting with your owners? Mentorship, Mindset & Melanie’s Leadership Growth Melanie Richards (38:49) Yeah, think, you know, right now, because again, we are so new and building, we're literally building a structure at the same time. ⁓ So the people that come in now are so critical. And, know, I've talked to many people in franchising and, know, the, like you were speaking on, you have the top, the middle and the bottom, you have antagonists. And I... Jeff Dudan (38:59) Mm-hmm. Melanie Richards (39:16) And right now, mean, our conversation, when we have a conversation in a couple of years, it's going to be completely different of what kind of a leader I am. And, and, know, where I found my spot, I'm still growing in this as well. ⁓ and as you know, you look at any sort of, ⁓ big brand out there, they were in my position at one point too. And, know, the, lessons learned, ⁓ and the, ⁓ the battles, you know, that I thought wouldn't be here or, know, they, get, they got here real quick. ⁓ you know, so, you know, I, I am most, focused on making sure that I'm building a rockstar team that can support because there's places in this business that, ⁓ you know, just like anybody in a startup, you, you're kind of wearing all the hats, but that that's not sustainable. It's not, nobody needs Mel in that in the accounting department, you know, like nobody needs that. ⁓ But you know, so right now it's to build the team so that I can be in my lane of a founder of speaking on the things that I want to be, ⁓ you know, working on for the brand and being able to have that time with owners. Right now it's just, we're a very small team and all hands are on deck on every single topic, which is, ⁓ you know, I do live and thrive in these environments. ⁓ but at the same time, I do look forward to having a, you know, a larger structure that get, that it gives me that moment of being a founder and a visionary and more into product development and all of these things that I do find are my gifts and, working with people. made a complete career out of, you know, working with people in their lives and, transitioning and, and, and, and, know, becoming better. ⁓ but right now I'm, I'm, I'm on the grind right now. So. Jeff Dudan (41:05) yeah. Where do you get your mentorship, leadership inspiration from? Do you listen to podcasts? Do you have people that you talk to? you joined any groups? What's working for you? Melanie Richards (41:16) Yeah, I have a really strong support team around me. Front Street Equity Partners are my strategic advisors in franchise and they're also doing the friend dove. And, know, I have Jeff Her who, who is, I don't know you've ever had a chance to meet Jeff. Yeah, he's very, ⁓ he, he is one of those people that at any time I can call and he does understand ⁓ sort of every single. ⁓ Jeff Dudan (41:23) Mm-hmm. I know Jeff. Melanie Richards (41:43) feelings and frustrations and he is my sort of ⁓ light to go to and just sort of be able to bounce things off of. He is incredibly honest and raw with me and he's like, Mel, you know, you're maybe at the third ring of hell, but we're coming out of it. You know, it's like he speaks the founder's language. And so honestly, I've been blessed in that nature with Jeff and You know, the rest of the team with Jim and then Eric Van Horn, of course, is, is yeah. So, you know, they, they have a belief in me and I have a belief in them. And we have this very core understanding that we are all on the same boat and we all, you know, work extremely hard. I don't think that you have any other partnerships like I do in this sense, where every single day they are working with GoGlo. You know, that's just sort of a unique. you know, partnership and franchising that I've found as far as Fran Dev, and I'm super lucky to have that. So, you know, I have a good team around me. Jeff Dudan (42:52) Have you met other founders through the IFA or you attend the IFA? How are you building your network inside of franchising? Melanie Richards (43:00) Yeah, so I have, I in the past, I want to say two to three months, you know, I have really, well, I've always been involved with Create and Cultivate and that is really a female leadership ⁓ group. And I have worked with Allie Webb and her. ⁓ Jeff Dudan (43:06) Mm-hmm. Melanie Richards (43:19) what he calls mind, whatever groups. And I, I have not gotten, I've gotten to every single, you know, Fran choice and those sorts of things, but that's, more of a sales thing. And, know, I don't find too much, ⁓ you know, founders that we can connect that way. I do look forward to being able to, because I, I be a founder is, is you know, just a different bird, you know, we've kind of been through, we're pretty war torn, but at the same time, very visionary and the growth and having goals that that are just probably astronomical and so it's hard to sometimes have conversations with people and I really try to kind of hold myself back in that way because I ⁓ don't, you when you look at like, what do you think you're trying to do here? You know, so I've really kept to myself ⁓ and you know, I think it is just because of the phase of the business that we're in right now for franchising but I do look forward to being able to step into that role and step into being able to be in the small groups of of people who have been through it. And I think that every single time that I talk to anyone that has walked this walk that I'm kind of in the path of, it makes me feel stronger. It makes me feel more settled and more validated in some of these things that I'm going through that I didn't see coming, but yet I'm pushing through and I think I am doing it well. However, being able to have those conversations is paramount to really... speaking to the soul of me and how hard this really is. Jeff Dudan (45:06) Will you be going to French choice in July? Melanie Richards (45:08) I will happen to be, we are involved in Crate and Cultivate and so we're in a breakout brand and it's exact same time as brand choice. I know. So it'll be the first one that I've missed since 2023. So I'm kind of bummed out, but my team will be there. Jeff Dudan (45:21) Our cup of coffee will have to wait then to some other time. I was gonna offer it. I was gonna hopefully to get a cup of coffee with you, but we'll see you at the next one. We'll see you at the next one. I'd like to explore this topic. So I was involved in Beam. It's an infrared sauna brand. We grew it in 300 locations. We got 44 open and we moved it on to Sequel. Melanie Richards (45:24) Yeah, thanks for that. Yes, for sure. ⁓ Okay. Is GoGlo a Women-Centric Brand? Jeff Dudan (45:51) recently a platform that just popped up. So it's one of the four or five brands over there. There was always a conversation around is this a woman-centric brand? And I look at that from a couple perspectives. The client base, I think largely was more women than men. It definitely had an elevated ⁓ look and feel. and smell like ⁓ if you walk into a beam, it was really well put together from the perspective of like it smelled good when you walked in. It sounded good. It was clean. was everything that you described with GoGlo. It was an elevated experience. It wasn't like going into a gym with, you know, small baseboards that were dusty and commercial carpet. you know, I've been into some competitors that that's what it felt like. It felt like they turned a classroom school into, and they just put saunas in there. And it wasn't ⁓ the same experience. And then we did have many ⁓ owners that were women. Do you position this as a women-centric type brand because of the clientele? what have you found with your cohort of franchise owners? Have there been more women interested in owning and operating a GoGlo than men? Melanie Richards (47:13) Interestingly, I did think that my avatar was was women, you know, I women owners. I would. And then ⁓ what we're finding more of is that the because the numbers seem to attract the men more so. you have females who are like, my gosh, I love this. I want to own one. And then the men are like, my gosh, look at those numbers, you know? And so between the two of them, we get some really power couples. Jeff Dudan (47:32) You're right. Melanie Richards (47:37) And so I've abandoned that, you know, this is just a female, it is absolutely not. And the industry itself, you know, I think that, you know, speaking on the infrared and all the wellness industry, yeah, it's driven by women right now because women are actually given permission to take care of themselves. just seem to have, society is less, ⁓ less gracious around men. Jeff Dudan (47:55) Mm. ⁓ we're like bears with furniture. Melanie Richards (48:05) Right. honestly, and what's really Jeff Dudan (48:07) You didn't have to agree so quickly, but yeah. Melanie Richards (48:11) But honestly, know, like my very first appointment that I ever took ⁓ mobile, was, you know, just a book online and it was a husband and wife. And he was, he was, was clear he was doing it for his wife, you know, because he was being deployed as a Marine. And, ⁓ and at the end of it, we couldn't get him out of the mirror. It was fascinating. And that's how it always was. And it's like, wait, we need to start giving men permission. to look good, feel good and to actually care for themselves. And it's a societal conversation. know, again, I go back to like my roots and my schooling, but like the study of people and societies and kind of what's been happening with men in these past 10 years of, you know, they're just getting beat over the head over like for a lot of things. And, you know, it's more of, okay, why are we not giving them permission to care for themselves? to get this treatments and not, you know, ostracizing them or being like, you got a spray tan. Yeah, because I don't want skin cancer. What are we doing here? Jeff Dudan (49:11) Yeah. Well, look, what you do makes us less white. Melanie Richards (49:15) And then you say that. Jeff Dudan (49:21) There you go. And we appreciate that. ⁓ bad. All right. You know, we don't do many edits, but that might be one. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. You know, we don't we don't there's nothing wrong with that. We don't need to edit that out. We are where we are. ⁓ So, OK. And I did, know, to your point in our beam brand, lots of power couples. You know, the Melanie Richards (49:22) me. You I think I'm Yeah. Jeff Dudan (49:49) I think maybe the woman would get interested and would see the, and then the man would be, ⁓ okay, this is a business opportunity, I'm interested. And then it would be something that they felt they could do together. And are you experiencing that in your brand? Melanie Richards (50:06) Very much so. those are the ones that are actually the most successful are the ones where they are like, this is my lane and this is my genius and I'm going to support side of it. And she's like, okay, great. I'm going to support this side of it. And they really work on a partnership. know, it's, it's the ones that, you know, if the couple comes in and the man's like, Oh, enjoy your new go-go. And he's just off doing his golfing. That, that is never is not going to work. Jeff Dudan (50:07) Yeah. Yeah. Right. You we had people in it. Vanaclin was the name of my my previous brand and we had couples that would come in and we lost deals because the the woman would say, I'm not I just don't want to go to my friend group or go to my country club and tell them that we clean up sewage losses. You know, it's just not it just you know, I see the business, I see the economics, I see the demand. It's got all the fundamentals of a business we can grow. But I just it's just not something that I want to talk about. And Melanie Richards (50:51) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jeff Dudan (51:02) and that would kill it if it was a couples deal. So, well, awesome. ⁓ This has been great. ⁓ Is there anything that we haven't covered that you would like to? Because we've talked about a lot of things and we haven't really talked a ton about your brand, but that's not really the intent. We're considering rebranding this podcast to Unemployable. a little more edgy, maybe a little bit more focused on the entrepreneur, but I don't think we'll change any of the format, but it's really more about entrepreneurship, people taking chances, what made them do it, what have they learned, and if you look across our guests, and we've had incredible, I think we're about 175 shows now, but they all had some sort of a... some sort of a challenge, some sort of a story, and something interesting to say. You've certainly been no exception to that. Is there anything that you would care to talk about that we haven't covered around the brand or anything else? Melanie Richards (52:00) I mean, yeah, no, I actually love this conversation and I do, I do appreciate it a whole lot more because a lot of times the podcasts are just about the brand and about the offering. But at the same time, there's, there's such a huge conversation and that sometimes gets missed and franchisors and founders get villainized and you know, in the franchise industry and to really put a human voice and a human life behind ⁓ why somebody would franchise their brand and what their story is and why. I just simply wanted to share something that I'm very, I found a lot success in, right? And I wanted to share that with somebody and I want to share that with. I want, I just wanted to share it, right? Um, and so I, th th you know, there, there is the, the hard part of franchising and it's very hard on a, franchise or who actually does, you know, give a shit and who does care about their people and who does care about the clients and the process and the brand. It, isn't a money play for me. If it was, I wouldn't be like, this isn't it, you know? So, um, I love the conversation because I think it is so important for the narrative around, you know... Franchise or being, you know, big bad bears and they're just here for the money. That's, know, I love to be able to speak on certain brands that like go glow and myself is this is a labor of love. This is my passion. This is my heart. This is my soul. This is everything I've poured and sacrificed for the past 15 years. And I don't share it lightly. And so yeah, when you come into go glow right now, we're, emerging, but we're a scrappy bunch. And you know, it's, it's not something where somebody that comes in in five years where that's a nationally recognized brand, they're going have a different experience than the person coming in right now. And so to pay homage to that and to really understand, you're catching somebody who's who's like I said earlier, like I'm kind of in the pits right now of really just grinding it out and building something amazing. And I'm so happy about it. I couldn't, it's going very well. ⁓ But you know, to anyone out there thinking about doing this, It is hard. It's gonna really rip at your life for a couple years. Jeff Dudan (54:18) It is hard and you have to have that North Star of franchisee empathy, franchisee care and franchisee outcomes. there's what I've learned is that there's this perfect balance in franchising. And if you look at brands that have really survived and thrived over decades, they have this balance between the right fees and Melanie Richards (54:23) We Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Jeff Dudan (54:48) the right activities, meaning who does what. What does the franchisee need to do? You can't give them a jet airplane, by the way, because many franchisees are non-entrepreneurs, right? They wrote a check, they've been able to cobble together some money, and they've been able to qualify for a loan to be able to be in there, but that doesn't make somebody an entrepreneur. You you can't make it too difficult for them. Anything that can be centralized reasonably should be. But then again, you don't want to permanently impair the ability for the franchise or to operate because of the financial model. So there's this like real little sweet spot. And observationally, and I've seen it because there's been a lot of flags of profitability and outcomes waving in the franchise industry. So a lot of people getting into it, a lot of people building. doing accelerated franchise development and, know, the, ignoring some of these lessons that have been learned over the last 30 or 40 or 50 years in putting their model together, whether that be, you know, not getting the fees that are gonna allow the four wall economics of the franchisee. Because at the end of the day, it's system wide revenue, it's economic. Performance in the unit and the four walls of the unit and it's franchisee satisfaction Are they satisfied that the time energy and money or them was worth it at the end of the day if you if you want to attract Melanie Richards (56:04) Yes. Jeff Dudan (56:13) high net worth, sophisticated, reasonable people that resolve conflicts in a healthy manner and are gonna be contributors to your system, not detractors to your system, then it's gotta be worth, you have to have an offering that's worth it for them at the end of the day. so when all of those conditions are satisfied, you still have to go through it all. So I walked back into this, I've been involved in, I don't know, 20 franchise concepts over my career. Melanie Richards (56:27) Yes. Jeff Dudan (56:42) And we walked into Homefront brands. I I walked in, I knew exactly what I was signing up for. I mean, I knew exactly. And by the way, just because you have a resume, that doesn't mean that changes anything for that individual franchise owner that signed on the dotted line, put themselves out there and they're not trying to operate this business. So there's no real shortcuts to it. But I will tell you that like finding a way to leave it, you do have to find a way to leave it at the office. And then when you show up like, You know three words. I give you three three little words that have helped me in French It's actually the three words that got my wife to agree to marry me actually same word. Yeah lower your standards No, that wasn't it. It was ⁓ no these three. Sorry these three words. ⁓ But okay rush to conflict rush to conflict Melanie Richards (57:35) Mm. Jeff Dudan (57:36) And again, it's just like I used to be very, you know, I'm a nice guy. I care about people. Maybe I'm a little bit conflict diverse, but the reality of it is, is like the moment that you recognize that an action needs to be taken. or that a decision's been made, anything that, any time between that moment and the moment something happens is called latency. And our job as leaders is to manufacture all the latency out of our business. And the way that we can occur inside of that is, Making sure that we're touching base to the front lines without it being a problem one thing that you're gonna you're gonna realize is you're gonna People if people complain that's when they get on the call with you. So now what have you done? You've just trained them that if they want your time that to complain, right? So you have to actually for every call you make to deal with and to help a franchise owner with an issue You got to make another call to one that's doing well and just stay in touch with them so, you know, it's it's and there's really no shortcut to it and ⁓ And then and then rushing to conflict. I mean in the service industry look we we we can see it in the numbers something's somebody's hiding revenue somebody's doing something that's they're not supposed to be doing and The first time around I would kind of let it go You know, I'd be like mmm, you know, I can't see it from my porch You know, it may it may be happening. It may not be happening. But but those types of things they grow inside of your, they become the norm. Somebody says, well, I feel stupid paying all my royalties because they're not, they're standing at the front desk of GoGlo taking a Venmo. it's, yeah, I mean, so, and that's just one thing, and that's just an example. It's not endemic or anything, and I don't know what endemic means. ⁓ it sounded like the right word. Can we look that up? All right, we'll look that up. you know, if you, it's just the other side of it is, anything left to itself always goes from bad to worse. I always show up with positive intention, and I show up and I'm ask assertive instead of tell assertive, then you listen. And you can take the worst, because the other side of it is, is. Melanie Richards (59:43) Yes. Jeff Dudan (1:00:01) Those owners are under the same stress that you were under when you started in that mobile business and you you were, cashed out five grand. It's still funny you did that because when I started at Vana clean, I had paid off a truck and I had a banking relationship and the buy-in to advantage clean was five grand. So I went and I mortgaged my truck. got the 5,000. I gave the truck, I gave the payment book to my younger brother and I said, here's a truck. When you pay it off, you can have it. Melanie Richards (1:00:04) Yes. ⁓ Bye. Jeff Dudan (1:00:28) and I took the five grand and I put it down on the table to start with, that was my buy-in, was, we were all putting in $5,000 to start that business back in 1994. And these owners are right back where you were. mean, they're, maybe they're not fully maxed out, but like it's more than they're comfortable having on the line. There's a timeframe that they are up against to make something happen, and they're counting on you to, that the guardrails are such that, Melanie Richards (1:00:46) Yes. Jeff Dudan (1:00:58) and are executable enough that they can make it work. And I don't think that ever changes. I guess if you get to where you've got a thousand locations open and it's just like clockwork. But at that point, you've got you know what it is. You don't have a lot of new owners. have you have successful owners opening additional units and they already know how to do it. So there you go. That's the that's the clear future for you. ⁓ You'll be there. You'll be you know, it'll be Melanie Richards, Jimmy Johns. ⁓ Melanie Richards (1:01:22) Thank you. you Jeff Dudan (1:01:27) You know just right up on the right up on the Mount Rushmore of location based franchising one day That's right, that's right. I just hope we all live long enough to do it right It's you know we we didn't we didn't lose. We just ran out of time all right I've got for you if you'll play along ⁓ I've got a curveball Melanie Richards (1:01:30) Yeah. From your mouth to God's ears. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Jeff Dudan (1:01:54) and then I got a fastball, it's gonna come right down the middle of the play that's gonna be a layup for you. But before that, why don't you tell people ⁓ if they wanted to get in touch with you the best way to do it. Melanie Richards (1:02:04) way to get in touch with me is obviously email mel at go glow dot co our website is go glow dot co not.com and ⁓ you know slide into our dms we're always on instagram or ⁓ you know reach out Jeff Dudan (1:02:19) All right, outstanding. Melanie, knowing what you know about business and your view of the world and what's happening right now, gun to your head. Do you have a dog? Some, okay, that's right, you mentioned that. Okay, somebody gonna steal your dog. If you have to start a business in 30 days and it has to be something that you're not currently active in. Melanie Richards (1:02:33) I do, he's getting groomed right now. Final Curveball: Where Melanie Sees the Next Big Opportunity Jeff Dudan (1:02:48) Where's the opportunity that you see in the market to start a business? What would you do? Youth sports. OK, why? Melanie Richards (1:02:53) Youth sport. Well, in Minnesota, we are hockey obsessed. My two boys play hockey. ⁓ And the disconnect, I believe, around... Jeff Dudan (1:03:03) Mm. Melanie Richards (1:03:12) I'll just say like youth hockey, for example, because that's what I'm most familiar with. there's, there's, there's a real disconnect and there's a lot of people pulling in different directions of, you know, where, where your kids should do this or where your kids should do that. Um, there's obviously a large, larger conversation of should you be specializing your kids, all of that. But at the same time, I think that there is a, a very large opportunity for, um, somebody to take a look holistically at how youth are moving through sports and take a step back because I think it is hitting a level of fever with parents and we're pushing our kids a little bit too hard. But I think that there is an opportunity to have some sort of, because you've got community, you've got private groups, there's something there that needs to gel all of that together in more of an advisory or a clinical or something like that. That's what I would say right now. I mean, it's completely, I seem to take huge hard turns in my life. So we're going from probation, beauty. I think I'm gonna hit the sports next. I don't know. Closing Words on Leadership, Loyalty & the Long Haul Jeff Dudan (1:04:16) Awesome. That sounds like a great idea. You might as well, kids and pets, people will spend anything. Anything at all. All right, here, fastball right down the middle. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be? Melanie Richards (1:04:30) Anything. Yep. ⁓ don't stop, make it happen and trust yourself. Jeff Dudan (1:04:46) Perfectly said. Thank you so much for being on today. Melanie Richards (1:04:51) Thank you, this was fantastic, I loved it. Jeff Dudan (1:04:53) Awesome. I'm Jeff Duden. We have been here with Melanie Richards, who is destined to do great things, and we have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.

Kelly Resendez on Purpose, Parenting, and Power with Jeff Dudan

July 17, 2025
In this energizing conversation, Kelly Resendez shares how she transformed a driven, “Type A” life into one of purpose and joy. Jeff Dudan guides a discussion that spans Kelly’s wake-up call from personal hardship, her conscious approach to parenting, the power of finding her tribe, and hard-won lessons in scaling a business. The tone is upbeat and plainspoken throughout, with actionable insights and authentic stories of growth. Introduction Jeff Dudan (00:00) Welcome to The Homefront, I'm Jeff Dudan. If you grew up in a small town in Northern California to type A entrepreneurial parents, became obsessed with being relevant and significant until a series of life events led to a fundamental change in your life purpose and strategy, which led to a new life, focus, a career shift, and a new book called Big Voices. An invitation to women to awaken, increase joy, reduce suffering, and think differently, your name can only be Kelly Resendez. Welcome, Kelly. Kelly Resendez (01:11) Hi Jeff, what a great way to spend my morning! Jeff Dudan (01:15) Well, thank you for being on. Very excited that you're here. So here's an opening question for you. What events or circumstances lead people to make wholesale fundamental changes in their lives? Wake-Up Call Kelly Resendez (01:27) Yeah, you know, for some that are absolutely blessed, it could be that they read a book, they had a conversation, they went to an event. But for most of us, it comes through, you know, the diagnosis of a loved one or the death of a loved one, a job loss, maybe a divorce, where they, you know, just the structure of your identity starts to crumble and you feel like something's missing. And that's exactly where it happened for me was my mom was only 57, got diagnosed with dementia. My grandmother passed away right after that. And then shortly thereafter, I had my daughter. And all of those things kind of brought me to this place of what I would call a radical awakening that I'd never had a present moment in my life, Jeff. Honestly, before that, I was just so consumed with doing and really being the center of attention in so many people's lives that I didn't even know who I was. So I think it happens differently for everyone. And I hope with conversations like this and people like us out in the world that really are what I would say doing the work and sharing it with other people that it becomes easier for the next person. Jeff Dudan (02:47) You were making a living in the mortgage industry. You were a high performer. You were running 1,000 miles an hour. What was the moment in your life where you said, have to make a change? And what gave you the courage to pursue it and to execute on it? Kelly Resendez (03:05) Yeah, so the pivotal moment actually came in a bathtub. ⁓ Jeff Dudan (03:10) as it should, as it does for all of us. Kelly Resendez (03:12) And, you know, I had just read the book Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle that somebody had recommended to me. I had also just read the China study, which was really, I don't know if you've heard of the China study. It's a long-standing study on just, you know, the differences between disease in Western countries and disease in countries that don't have the same level of, I would say, animal protein, sugar, you know, processed foods, et cetera. And I was in the bathroom. Jeff Dudan (03:18) Mm-hmm. Kelly Resendez (03:42) with my daughter and she was just a few months old and we were just singing like rub-a-dub-dub I don't even remember exactly what it was but like literally I experienced the deepest level of presence that I ever had before because it wasn't about capturing a photo or telling anyone about it because I feel like that's how I lived my life before like my gosh I was the top producer let me call my mom let me do this let me do that and I never really had been in that moment before. And that was the point in which I just dedicated my life to, you know what I would say, becoming the best version of myself. And that, you know, my previous self died and you think, great, that's it. And then you realize like it's never ending. You know, the person I was last year is the person that I am today, but I wouldn't trade this adventure for anything. Jeff Dudan (04:37) just walked out of a training class for new Homefront Brands franchise owners. I do the first hours of training and what you did in your life is something that I try to create the conditions for in their lives, which is before you came to Homefront Brands, you were an executive inside of a company. You did something for a living, but generally they were not entrepreneurs. Some people were, but in this particular class this morning when I asked the question who's owned a business before, nobody raised their hands. So now I have two hours to open up their brains and to create a new awareness of who they need to be to be successful in this role. What do they need to do? How do they need to think? And I give them an add and a subtract piece of paper, simple Ben Franklin like paper with the word subtract on the left, with the word add on the right with a date and their signature on the bottom. it says, you know, as you go through this next two hours and have you go through the rest of the week, you know, there may be some awareness that there's some things you need to stop doing. There's some things that you walked into the room with that you don't need to walk out of the room with. And it is hard for us because we are wired to follow patterns. We are wired to seek our own level of comfort. And our will is an exhaustible resource. So if you really want to make some changes, you're going to be fighting with yourself. ⁓ You're everything that you've learned, all of your nature, all of your nurture to become somebody new to create a new future for yourself. And it's a challenge and many people don't have the courage to do it. They just settle. say, well, or they do it partially they don't make a wholesale change. And sometimes that's just a matter of I'm changing five or 10%, but it doesn't really give you any impact in your life. You might think that you're doing feeling better. You might think that you're doing better, but you're actually just doing a small variation on the theme that you've had for the entire pattern that you've created in your life. What really motivated you to make this wholesale change? Because as I've read your book, Big Voices, which is great. And then you've got a new book coming out, which is The Abundance Frequency, which I want to hear more about. But like what gave you the courage just to say, you know, what I've gotten me to this point is not going to get me to where I want to go. And nothing is sacred. And I'm willing to put in the work and I'm willing to take the risk and I'm willing to to change because very few people in my experience are willing to do that. All In On Growth Kelly Resendez (07:13) Yeah. So this is what I would say, Jeff. Number one, most people hear a whisper. They hear a whisper of like, there's gotta be more than this. There's, you know, like there's more to life. Like what if I were to start that business and holy moly talk about a blessed group of people that get to hear you, you know, share the wisdom that you do with them because what they're really creating is a new life for themselves. But nobody ever tells us when we're young, like, Hey, just so you know, you're going to accidentally get programmed ⁓ by everyone around you. And you actually have a choice. There's this thing called neuroplasticity that you can actually rewire a lot of these things. And so when I talk about it in the abundance frequency, I talk about it like hardware that's got malware in it, right? Like you need somebody to come in and rewire some of these things. And so for myself, the courage really came from loneliness when, you know, I think most of us when we know in psychology, we're trying to gain the approval or attention of one parent or the other. And my mom was that person and I didn't realize it. You know, I was affirmed on a daily basis. I am not the person that is complaining about how my parents raised me, but I think I got over affirmed. and it was something so simple, Jeff, like you wouldn't even realize as a parent. And then you probably realize that you're doing it yourselves over something. I was told the time that I was really little that I was the new year's baby. Well it's the new year's baby at Chico in Enloe Hospital, right? Some tiny hospital. I was born on January 3rd but something in me like created this I've got to be special and from that point going forward I couldn't just accept Jeff Dudan (09:06) Hmm. Kelly Resendez (09:10) the, you know, just normalcy. It was I have to be in the paper. I've got to be this. I've got to be that firsthand raise all these other things. And so and it was always to gain my mom's approval. And so when my mom got sick, all of a sudden, I didn't have anyone that care like nobody cares as much as your mom, right. And and I was like, Whoa, this is really an inside out job. And so my decision at that point was, number one, I'm going down the same path as her. Not sleeping at night, stressed, hyperproductive, all of these things. Whether or not that's the reason why she got sick or not, I'm going to do everything in my power. And so I really started on my physical well-being first. And let me tell you, when you make commitments to yourself, God creates amazing opportunities. Like literally, within two weeks of making that decision, like I'm going to get physically healthy because I was overweight after having my daughter. I was not the best version of myself, whatnot. I'm going to my beach house in Bodega Bay in California and my friend Bonnie is like, hey, I'm going to come. She was coming. She worked for Tony Robbins in Fiji at the point. She's like, I'm going to come and bring my boyfriend. I'm like, perfect. So who shows up but Scott Harris, the guy that runs Tony Robbins wellness program and it starts absolutely storming. I'm locked in a house with a man that is like the most wise guy on wellness for four solid days. Now given I had just been to Costco, so I bought the salami and the know the cheese and the like all of these like every imaginable unhealthy thing that you can buy in Costco the stuff that you taste because we thought we're going away for New Year's like let's have a He didn't need a single thing of it. And I made these things sorry, this is a long story, but they're called the triangles of death. It was Wonder Bread with cheese mayonnaise and onions on it then you bake it they're delicious, but we still joke about it when we see one another because I'm like he literally like educated me from top to bottom on my physical well-being and when I got my physical brain like to a point because I didn't realize how much food alcohol had really had really affected my ability to have the energy to do the work. Like that kicked me into the next gear. So it was that the courage really came from this deep knowing that like, I'm going to create the same life that my mom did, you know, work your butt off, get disease die. No, no, hey, I'm going to enjoy retirement, none of that. And we know how many people that happens to because the minute they stop like things, things shift. And so the courage mixed with the right team. and wisdom started to magically appear on my path and if I told you all of them you'd be like what like that person showed up in your life or this happened talk about divine you know guidance it was there to support me every step of the way Jeff Dudan (12:22) Wow. Part of what you did was you went deep into, and I think in the book you called it self-help. I think you used the buzzword, but my understanding of knowledge that's out there from masterminds, from groups, from people, it's deep. ⁓ I've become very ⁓ aware of my development first through something called Vistage, then from something called YPO, then from something called CEO, then strategic coach and a thing called the Genius Network. And what I've learned is you go into these rooms and you meet people that just say things that are so obvious that you can't believe that you're, you know, I'm 56 years old and I just learned this. It's like, where has this piece of wisdom that could have saved years off my life, ⁓ where has it been? When you decided, so one of my questions was where did you seek knowledge from? And this person just, basically what you did was you kidnapped somebody for four days and you trapped them in your house. other than that, if I was somebody that just woke up and I had a realization, I'm in this job, I'm gonna be in this job for the rest of my life, my cube's gonna get a little bit bigger, my kids might not know who I am. Kelly Resendez (13:30) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (13:50) I don't see the path that I've been on as the path that I want to be on. Where would you advise people to go seek knowledge? And by the way, at Homefront Brands, mean, that's a big thing for us. It's just entrepreneurial education. Doesn't matter which Homefront brand they're in. Doesn't matter what business they're in. Like, how can we pour into these people to make them the very, very best version of themselves and their entrepreneurial self that we can make them? And by the way, of course, When the student's ready, the teacher appears. And sometimes people aren't ready. They have to come to it themselves. So when you came to that realization, was it systematic in the way that you sought out knowledge? Was it happenstance? What did you do? Where did you go? And tell us about that journey. Kelly Resendez (14:36) Yeah, so the good news was I was already very indoctrinated into the goal planning world. And so when I started to approach it, because, you know, being in mortgage, I had the opportunity to like go to Zig Ziglar. There's another amazing real estate coach named Brian Baffini. And, you know, I had made a decision at that point, like my number one priority was being a more conscious parent. Jeff Dudan (14:44) Okay. Mm. Kelly Resendez (15:04) recognizing how programmed I was when I was growing up. Again, I love my parents, but you know, I think we believe our role is to give them our opinions. And and when we really think about it, it's like who do who are we really to be able to overlay this on them? And so I had I had already made a decision like I want them to have strong values. And one of those values is really authenticity. And so I wanted them to be able to, you know, kind of fit into that, into that realm. And then the other thing that I wanted to do was to really raise incredibly independent humans. so, you know, that was, I kind of looked at like, what are my top priorities? Okay. My kids, number one, how do I dedicate more time and energy to learning about parenting and then physical health? And I made massive changes in my physical health like that. It was crazy. Like I went from not sleeping very well, which is a lot of it's food when you're eating the wrong foods at night, that's what your body's trying to do. So I had to really learn a lot about it. So I used a traditional goal planning model of like, I'm gonna read one book a week and then I'm gonna start seeking out going to events. And again, these are things that are divinely orchestrated once you make the decision and you write them down. People that just think that there's not power and writing these things down. When your brain sees a map for something, it's really intelligent. And so then it was I went to a kid's birthday party and I got invited to Maria Shriver's, you know, women's event in LA and got to meet extraordinary humans that then took me down another path of a lot of other things. And, know, like the next year got to hang out with that guy, our toll laid there and people like Elizabeth Gilbert, who had wrote Eat, Pray, Love and a small intimate setting and just so many other amazing people. But what I would say is that was 21 years ago that I started. I was having to go to the bookstore. I was probably the last person to get on Amazon Prime, by the way. Like I was so resistant to it. Now I might get in books left and right from there. I had to drive to the bookstore and I had to fly to events. so talk about, there was a long time in between the things that I would really do besides reading. Today, holy moly, the number one use case for chat GPT is mental health support about all of the resources out there in the entire world to be able to give you, know, what I would tell you is that this isn't an information game. This is a combination between knowing what you really desire. And this is what my book abundance frequencies about really having that desire for the type of life in which you want to live and how you want to feel in it. That's the most important piece. And then the discipline and then putting yourself into the right environment internally and externally. And those are kind of the three pillars. But today you have access to everything, right? This comes down to one simple, one really simple decision. Start seeing your brain like the organ that it is and know that you can improve the way in which it works in your life and that you can take care of it and you can understand it and you can reprogram it because when you start to make that decision that's where boom you start to realize like man there is like this is just an energy game this is an inside out energy game the first time i met you jeff i knew exactly i'm like you're my people it's an input we know like no ego all about changing improving the lives of other people that might not have the courage to do it on their own, right? They could have gone out and started their own company or they could have just gone like, wow, I'm really great at these things. But the structure and the foundation for success that you provide these people, you know, is best in class. And so when we get to that point where we're like, man, I am going into a cubicle every day. I know something's missing. I want to have better quality with my kids. What you don't want is to go become self-employed and be a worst version of yourself. Like you want to really make that decision. Like I am going to feel joy. I'm going to feel gratitude. I'm going to release guilt. I'm going to release stress and really just start to create the life that I really want. But you got to know that you're powerful enough to do that. Parenting With Purpose Jeff Dudan (20:08) You've mentioned parenting a couple of times and you also shared in addition to your mom having dementia at 57 that you have a sister that's struggled with addiction. And so this family dynamic that you grew up in type A parents, you have a sister. you have any other siblings? Just one sister. So two sisters growing up in the same exact environment, take two different paths in life. Kelly Resendez (20:11) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (20:37) And then now you've got your children and you've made a very specific decision about them, one of which is set independent, which I've always said, my children, I want them to be capable, contributing, independent adults. That's it. Do they have capabilities that they can build value and navigate the world? Are they contributing? Do they have an external or internal locus of control? Can they really understand that they're in charge of whatever happens to them, that the circumstances don't define them, and inside of that, they can also create value for other people, and then they're independent, right? And if they can do that, then whatever it is they choose to do, musician, engineer, scientist, whatever it is, then they will generally live a fulfilled life. it's inside of that. So what is your family dynamic growing up? ⁓ What did you learn from helping your mother? What did you learn from helping your sister? And then how did that translate to the philosophies and tactics that you implemented with your children? Kelly Resendez (21:47) Yeah, what a great question, Jeff. First of all, I just wanted to tell you because I think it's hilarious, but I came home to my 20 year old on Friday night with two of his buddies at the counter and he was telling them about roof scientists because I had told him like I want you to go study this he's like because he really wants to Have a business. He's worked for good leap my main company here where we do home improvement financing but I mean I just I was just tickled because most kids on a Friday night are like talking about whatever and my son talking about like hey there's this new thing like we should really check it out because a few of them want to go into business together long term so I just thought you'd get a kick out of that so yeah yeah so I mean that is that Jeff Dudan (22:28) Interesting, fascinating. Kelly Resendez (22:34) is a product of my conscious parenting, which if anyone isn't familiar with what conscious parenting is, it is really just the ability to see like these are not ours. They are they're independent and our role is to really be present and conscious with them. And at the same time, educate them, you know, and so I really did educate my kids on lifestyle choices. Like, hey, I don't care if you want to be a doctor, attorney, a business Jeff Dudan (22:48) Hmm. Kelly Resendez (23:04) owner or any of these things, but like you need to know that when you choose a career, it's going to change the lifestyle in which you live. And my kids are, you know, accustomed to definitely a more five star lifestyle that I've that I've provided for them. And so when I grew up, you know, my parents were not conscious. And so my mom was was an immigrant from Mexico. She had something to prove. You know, I think it's very common for that to happen. And so she started in real estate at a really young age of 19, which I ended up doing my daughter ended up doing as well. And so some of those core things are great. However, like there aren't a lot of memories of her being down on the floor with me playing or being outside doing those other things, because she always had to be doing something productive. And so that was my first thing was to really, really study conscious parenting. ⁓ good friend of mine, Dr. Shefali is actually the largest conscious parenting coach in the world. And so I'm very blessed that I've had a lot of her wisdom through that. But the big difference in conscious parenting is that you make the challenges about you, not them. And so if my son was triggering me, you know, when he's 14, playing Fortnite, before he got his homework done, I made it about me being more powerful and more accepting and then understanding that I can also create something different. Like I used to take his cord with me sometimes like to work or whatever it was. So he didn't have access to it. But I think what most parents don't realize is that, you know, they normally make challenges about them. They're not doing well in school. They're not this. They're not that. Well, I had to be really radically honest with myself. Like, my God, I ordered four point five students that were going to get full ride scholarships to Stanford and you sent me two fairly average amazing human beings, you know, and and so we can struggle with those things and you see it on the soccer field where parents are living through their kids and and putting a lot of performance based expectations on them. And that's the environment that I grew up grew up in. It was performance based. My dad hadn't done any healing, you know, was abandoned as a child and so didn't know how to say I love you yet. Jeff Dudan (25:28) Mm. Kelly Resendez (25:29) I mean, I'll just be honest, I can say it here because my dad's never going to listen to this. He objectified women. And so everyone was pretty or beautiful and he noticed them all the time. And so when you're growing up in that environment, I think a lot of times you're like, well, is that what I'm supposed to be? Is that how I'm supposed to show up in the world? And so, and my mom was obsessed with what she weighed and was constantly talking about like losing weight or, you know, she just didn't whatever. So of course, Jeff Dudan (25:46) right. Kelly Resendez (25:59) my sister and I came out of it two totally different you know experiences because I also had her so as she was struggling in relationship or other things then I set stronger boundaries for myself closed myself off to some of the things that she had opened herself up to so you know I would tell you that my sister ⁓ was addicted to love that was her addiction and unfortunately you know she is in a mental institution now because Jeff Dudan (26:24) Hmm. Kelly Resendez (26:29) because she didn't take care of herself. You know, she definitely...showed me a lot of things that I didn't want to be in my life, but she also showed me how close so many people are, like one millimeter from the edge. She was a high achiever herself, college graduate, whatnot, but fell victim to living in extreme suffering for so long, both with her children and her relationship. so she just didn't take care of herself. It gives me the fuel to be the best version of me every day and to transcend the things that happen with them into helping other people. You know, and that's really what for me, it's not a need. It's more a, you know, like I get the great honor of sharing the strategies and the healing that have really got me through some of the craziest times that, you know, are imaginable. And a lot of times people look at successful people and say like, well, you, you, you know, you've had it different than me. No, I really haven't. I haven't had it different than you. I experienced it differently because I spent so much time putting myself first. Jeff Dudan (27:51) I like to say it's the vibe that builds the tribe and people sometimes are slow to come to this concept of it's the community that you put around you that will have the biggest impact in your velocity and ⁓ your development. I took some time to go to the GoBundance website and the GoBundance Women website. You're co-founder of GoBundance Women and ⁓ Kelly Resendez (28:19) Yes. Power Of Community Jeff Dudan (28:21) I would like to know from you a little bit more about the group. It appears to me to be a very comprehensive offering, everything from masterminds to a podcast to content to groups and trips and an app and coaching services, a very comprehensive offering, but it's a community. And I was trying to, like so many of us do, was trying to...put it in a hold and say, it like YPO? Is it more like coach? What is GoBundance Women? How did you come to be a co-founder of it? And tell us what the experience would be like if someone were to join today. Kelly Resendez (28:51) Yeah. Absolutely. So I will tell you that from my own experience of going on this journey alone for most of it. So from 2004 is when I would probably say is when I really had my awakening at the beginning of that year to you know, I would say 2016 you go to events you read maybe every once in a while you meet somebody that's a little bit interested in it, but you really are kind of on a solo journey, which I think is important for of it. One of the greatest, ⁓ you know, I would say recognitions over time is that when you start to curate an environment that supports it, then it gets you to the next level. And so that's really, you know, that third pillar in my, in my book Abundance Frequency, not going to be out until late this year where it started was just a conversation. Again, Jeff, my life has been so guided. Like I feel like people are always thinking clarity comes like in thinking. Clarity comes from just being curious and open and being authentic about your purpose and what your challenges were. And I was complaining, you know, and I'm going to use the word complaining. I was sharing with a friend. It was right after Big Voices came out. This was a while ago that I wish I had more women in my life that were like minded and that I was struggling with that. And he's like, well, have you ever heard of like go Bundance? And I'm like, no. And he's like, well, I'm an M one, which is another community, but go Bundance is a group of men that basically want to, you know, travel together, support one another. They do goals. They do all of these other things. And he goes, I heard they were interested in a women's division. And I'm like, send me the information. I would love it. Next thing I know, I'm like having conversations with them about it. They're like, Hey, we're probably six months out, but we'll invite you to our first potential thing. And so I ended up joining M1 at that point, which is coed and my friend Rock Thomas, I don't know if you know Rock, he's an amazing speaker and, and, and, ⁓ full of wisdom. I ended up doing that and realizing like, my gosh, my first event that I went to, I was like, ⁓ my people are here. Like we're all carrying around our journal books and talking about the things that we want to create in our life. And it was an amazing, you experience going through that. But then we had this first women's event. And then from there, you know, one of my co-founders, Kathy and I, you know, over time, we ended up building it and taking ownership of it. And now here we are many years later, and I definitely do not have a shortage of like-minded women in my life that are supportive. And, know, the men's organization, over 900 men in it, absolutely great people. And one of my favorite things about them, Jeff, is that they put such a priority on family, marriage, health, knowing that when you get those things in alignment, it takes your business and your finances and your network and ability to contribute to the next level. And so that's really the foundation in which Go Abundance is built. And so in terms of when somebody becomes a member, for the women, it's a little bit different than the men. Men have a little more challenging time connecting or women connect really quickly. So we're a little bit more about scaling your business, your authority. If you want to be an authority figure or somebody that really is building your business through creating a personal brand for yourself or your investment portfolio. So we kind of have those tracks of which you do that. And then there's a lot of different things that go along with that. do a lot of group coaching and I'm the one that's really there about the mindset, like consistently you know, making sure that people are in alignment because no one has taught us. Like, let's be honest, like nobody told us when we were five, like, hey, Jeff, you get to choose what you believe. Like, these are all choices. And, you know, there's a lot of simple things that I've recognized over the last 10 years that now I'm like, man, if I would have known that 10 years ago, just how important the language is, how important, you know, really receiving is. So that's been my greatest awakening in the last few years is a lot of us are really good at giving. Jeff Dudan (33:29) What do you mean by ⁓ receiving? Kelly Resendez (33:35) Like we show up and give and we're not so good at receiving. And so when you look at a mastermind, it is the collective wisdom, right? And you've got to be open to a lot of that. And so we really make sure that especially women who have been a little programmed to be more in their masculine kind of are. getting to that place of feeling just right in their feminine as well. And in the feminine, a lot of it is receiving, but we're really good at giving, women especially. And we give and we give and we give until we empty ourselves. And that's where people have breakdowns and don't do as well. Jeff Dudan (34:16) Have you, I reviewed the GoBundance websites and some of the people that are in the group, very accomplished people, advanced in their careers, somewhat high profile. I imagine that's the avatar for what's in that group. How can somebody who is just building their first business accomplish the same thing but without the time, without the budget because they're really just starting their first business. And the resources are gonna be dedicated to creating that business. There's probably going to be a little bit of uncertainty. they're gonna be stingy with the resources, which they need to be. Although I'm gonna encourage them to, as if you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space. So you gotta get out of, if you're an entrepreneur, it's not fatal, it's not gonna kill you. You've gotta get off center. And you've got to start moving out towards the edge of the circle where the air is, you know, all of the great things happen out near the edge where the air is thin in that rarefied air of, you know, I'm going to go for it and I'll deal with the consequences. But for these people, do you have any any thoughts about how they can start building community within their community, how they can start opening up their minds to different things? I know there's Kelly Resendez (35:23) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (35:38) BNI groups and all of that kind of stuff. But are there any online resources that you can point people towards or any suggestions about how they should think about this? Kelly Resendez (35:50) Yeah, the first thing that I would say is that I would ensure that you have a business playbook and a business playbook has got to be focused on who you need to be. And Jeff Dudan (35:57) Mm-hmm. Okay. Kelly Resendez (36:03) And I mean, there's a lot that goes into this playbook. Be open and willing to change it every single week. But what you need is you need execution, at least on a weekly basis. Sometimes you can shift after a week. Like I look at, you know, how Hayes, Matt and Jason built Goodly. And it was literally like they went all in a mortgage and spent all this money and the phones weren't ringing. And like, literally, if you heard them tell the story, it was like a whole week goes by and then another week goes by. And then finally, Matt and Hayes went to Tahoe and stayed in a, you know, stayed in the cabin until they figured out new scripting the next week they came back and it was like 200 calls, right? Like, where you've got to be in abundance is flexible and adaptable to be able to know that something's not working, but you need to have a playbook. And what when you're really a solopreneur, if you're really starting out, you know, my greatest thing that I did was I made a job of everything that I wanted and I had to be my own employee like 30 hours a week in the very beginning. I had to do stuff that I didn't really want to do but I knew on this job description as soon as I could hire an assistant I'd be able to offload those and so I had a vision for like being able to do that and then six assistants later I only had three things that I had to do you know and that's part of what I've done here at GoodLeap was just create divisions that ended up being very self-managed to the point in which I've now been able to step down and take a step back a little bit. But what I would say is that, you know, from online resources, there are so many groups on Facebook that you can be a part of that are free, that have a lot of information in them, both in home improvement and in solar or other, I mean, all sorts of different types of businesses. Go out there and do your research on the community businesses. Chat GPT is literally changing people's lives. Jeff Dudan (37:46) Mm-hmm. Kelly Resendez (38:03) They can help you, you know, basically determine what are the free resources that you have local. And there's all sorts of free events as well that are out there that you want to be in proximity to people. Nothing's going to stop you from starting your own board of advisors or your own board of, you know, unofficial board of directors where you choose people that are, you know, somebody that maybe has given you mentorship over the past. And you ask them like, Hey, would you help kind of hold me accountable? A little bit to this. Some of the CEOs that I've mentored, now have, you know, years later ownership in their companies because I was there for them, you know, in the very beginning when they were bootstrapping. So what I would say is number one, be open to the idea that you don't have to do this alone. Spend time and energy curating the environment that supports you the best. Some people are great, Jeff Dudan (38:53) Right. Kelly Resendez (39:01) on zoom, go abundance is primarily built on zoom. do we do events several times throughout the year, but it's not that local. Some people want to be in person. And so you might want to look at a YPO or or Vistage or one of those and then also know that what like what is your greatest area that you need to overcome. So this is what I found to be true, especially about some of the entrepreneurs. They weren't as great in school because they like to procrastinate a little bit and yet they're big thinkers and they just haven't figured out like I just got to get the right people around me. So you want to really understand your strengths and weaknesses and be aware of your weaknesses, like really truly be aware of them and say like, do I create an environment where I am going to execute on the things that I really need to like, what am I going to hold back? Do I need my partner to tell me that I don't get to go on this trip unless I do that. Setting deadlines for yourself is really effective there. And then just knowing that you can hire really smart people over time to do all of the things that you don't love to do. Like, I'm a visionary. I am not somebody that likes maintenance. Like, I am a builder. I like building stuff. And then I like handing it off. And just having that self-awareness, that emotional intelligence to know, Like over time, if I'm maintaining something, I'm just gonna get really bored. I like a lot of variety. So now I gotta go on and do something a little bit different. Just know who you are gonna be in the business and know that you can hire the right people. I mean, most of the greatest companies out there, they brought somebody in that were, they were the operator, they were the connector, they were the whatever. Just be honest with yourself. But I also, ⁓ you know, I love Cody Sanchez's environment. She's got a lot of great resources out in her community that's out there for buying businesses and scaling. know, I'm always open if you're if you really are in a position where you want some deep mentorship over six months on scaling your business quickly. That's something that I do and help somebody build a lot of the you know, whether it's funnels for more Legion or or you know, maybe you want to publish a book like you published a book which is amazing on resilience in your story. And those are things that can really help elevate your business to the next level so that you can become somebody that's kind of like a local authority figure. Jeff Dudan (41:39) You've mentioned several things that would lead me to believe that you may have met Carol Dweck who wrote the Growth Mindset book or at least you've read it because Kelly Resendez (41:50) I have not met her, but one of my favorites. Jeff Dudan (41:56) One of the things you mentioned was, one of the greatest lessons from the book is you want to praise people's efforts, but not something like their looks. You're so pretty, you're so smart, you're so this, because then, they feel like they have to live up to that standard. You said your father would call your sister pretty, so she felt like she had to be pretty. think you said something like that. As opposed to, that was a great effort. Look at how hard you tried. so people that understand that they don't have to be perfect, but it's really about the effort of doing it and not trying to live up to some standard that was put on them by somebody else as part of having that growth mindset versus that fixed mindset that says, I already am this. So even if I fall short of it, I have to create the scenario where it looks like I am. they would give tests to people that were unanswerable. And then the smart kids would basically cheat and say that they got it right and they got the answer, even though the questions weren't unanswerable or something like that. But I mean, was that book. I've read it several times. It made a huge impact on me. And it's almost like once you see something, you can't unsee it. And having a growth mindset and what that means, it takes so much pressure off because ⁓ we are a constant student. I learned something last week, I don't remember exactly what it was, but I can't believe I'm this old and I just learned this very basic philosophy or this principle or whatever it was and I'm gonna incorporate it, but now I can't unsee it. So it's a filter by which...As I navigate this life, I'm going to continue to use to make decisions about things or assess things or things like that. Are there times though, as again, going back to that first time entrepreneur, are there times that they should go alone? so look, so much of what I teach them is get in the right communities. This is how you enter the community. You're a business leader. You're gonna pay people by the hour, you're gonna pay people commission, but you get paid by the conversation. And the quality, the caliber of the conversations that you have, and if you're having them with the right people, will take your business farther than you would have ever. So you say, if you wanna go fast, go alone, if you wanna go far, go together. There was a great post I saw on social media the other day, and it was, It was all of the big business founders and what percentage they actually own of their companies like Facebook and Tesla. I mean, was, you know, 6%, 20%, 12, you know, I think Warren Buffett owns 13 % of Berkshire Hathaway. So, and the point that the post made was, look, get other, get all the right people on the bus. Get diversity of thinking, thought, skills. And the only thing you don't want diversity of is value. Kelly Resendez (44:37) you ⁓ Jeff Dudan (44:59) in your company. Other than that, you need incredible diversity and skill set capabilities, age, race, perspective, all of these things. So build a diverse company that when the Rubik's Cube is twisted, it solves itself because you have all of the requisite capabilities and lead them well. ⁓ you know, you know, when, and so it's really about going together, but are there times as an entrepreneur where you need to go fast and you need to go alone? I can think of a couple in my career, what about you? Scaling Up Kelly Resendez (45:35) ⁓ Yeah, absolutely. think there's a time and a place for it because sometimes you need to be able to model what somebody else is going to do. You know, one of my favorite sayings is like, nobody's coming. Like nobody's coming. Like nobody's coming. Meaning like you are the one that is or the creator of your own life. Sorry about that. Jeff Dudan (45:49) Nobody's coming. What does that mean? Kelly Resendez (46:00) When you think about that, some people believe they need to be rescued or they have to have this. And there's such a different experience than I'm growing a company. And these are the key roles that I really need because I've also watched early, early founders give up too much to the wrong people. So I think there are a couple of things that partnerships need values for one. Jeff Dudan (46:05) Hmm. Kelly Resendez (46:26) high emotional intelligence for two, nothing will derail your company like somebody that just is, you know, up and down all the time, which a lot of great entrepreneurs are, which sometimes you've got to insulate the founder or the idea maker by other people that have really high EQ. And so what I would say is there's definitely times that you want to do it alone. However, there will become a point in which you say, like, I no longer want to be an owner operator. I want to get to this next level of CEO visionary where I'm more inspecting and guiding and that kind of thing. It's not for everyone. There are so many situations where someone's like, I love cleaning houses, I get to go in, I do it, I'm done, I come home and I do all the other things that I love. So I don't think that there's one size fits all. But if you're trying to scale a company long term, because you think that you have a really solid business idea, you will need to build this business playbook to know what talent you need. And what I would say is that most people hire the wrong talent at the wrong time. And there is a method for how most companies really scale in the right way. And I kind of believe that too many people think that you need to build the plane on the ground. The best companies are literally building it while they're flying it. Like, Jeff Dudan (47:36) Mm-hmm. Kelly Resendez (47:55) You don't need to wait till it's perfect. Launch your product, launch your idea, keep iterating. I know that we've upgraded the way that we do things so many times. We started off as a mortgage company. We've had this, we've had that. We do multiple things today in the home improvement space. And so when you really think about it, just don't wait to be ready and perfect. Just go do it. That's definitely the way that you want to go. Jeff Dudan (48:24) Good Leap is the company that you've referred to several times. I became exposed to Good Leap as a finance company in the property service space. How did you first get involved with Good Leap and can you just give us the quick little down and dirty about what you did, how it got to where it is today, and why people might want to engage with Good Leap? Kelly Resendez (48:24) the company. for sure. Absolutely. again, divine intervention. I had been doing mortgage for so long and what I had, I had come up with a recipe that was working, but I knew that I needed to do more. So I was running my team and I was speaking. was influencing people in the real estate and mortgage space. had a lot of business leaders that would come to my stuff. And so I was already teaching the mindset and the business scaling skills that I had really learned. I really, you know, like, my superpower is being able to look at an organization or a business from a high level and be like, you don't have a really solid lead gen mechanism built in place or this is that or you need better operational excellence or hey, you know, I checked out your testimonials and like you could really, you know, do a lot better there. So I do really well with that. And I was doing that. So I was doing both things simultaneously. And then he's called me. And honestly, it's one of those things that it was a Friday night and he left me a message at five and just you know said hey you know we've known each other for a little while I know our what we do is a little bit different but I just want to know what your goals are and if there if there's anything that I can do to support you on that. Now I had been in negotiation with Wells Fargo for a while at this point they were really dragging their feet with a lot of red tape and what I was going to be doing more of with them and so I agreed to come over here and the first time that I came into his office and we our kids had gone to school together, all three founders and my and my kids went to school together and they'd always been a call center mortgage company and I was on the other side of it. I was a you know, relationship driven, like realtor focused and the reason why he made the phone call in the beginning was that I was the authority figure in mortgage. I was the person that had created a brand for myself. No one else had really done that back then. And I was speaking and hosting events on a regular basis. And that's really why he called me. And I came over here and right when I got here, his crazy mom, who I love to death, her name is grandma Deedee, was pushing an ice cream cart around wearing an umbrella on her head with streamers. And she said she was like spring, whatever, delivering ice cream to all their employees. And I was all, did you plan this? Like, is this a normal thing? Every single Thursday, she did snack attack. And so was one of those things that I knew that they cared about culture. And where Hayes and I connected was like, Hey, this is kind of a personal growth company that does mortgage and does we were doing solar sales at that point, too. And that, you know, he kind of told me he wanted to change the world. And I'm like, Do know how you're going to do it? He's like, not yet. And I'm like, but I believed in him. And that's really the decision that I made to join the executive team. And I've been here now for Jeff Dudan (51:22) You Kelly Resendez (51:47) 14 years and absolutely, you know, the reason why people want to work with Goodleaf is we're very, very strong in home improvement financing and solar financing. And it just depends on what you're doing. We're, you know, we definitely are thoughtful about the contractors that we work with, but that's because we want to be in business forever. Jeff Dudan (52:12) Working a room, speaking, leading a session, people underestimate the power of that and the impact it'll have on their career. When did you first realize that number one, you had a talent for that, number two, how important it was? Kelly Resendez (52:29) my goodness. ⁓ There was a part of my personality, I was born with it, right? I was that kid that was super attention seeking from a young age, but I also was interested in things that were more adult like. like, I mean, honestly, I remember in first grade, I was obsessed with Ronald Reagan and like the hostages being freed or I knew stuff that most kids wouldn't know and could have conversations about. And so I could tell already when I was talking to adults, or that kind of thing that I had that ability to kind of capture people. And then I started doing stuff at a young age, whether it was, you know, reading in mass or, you know, raising my hand, it was just this consistent over time leadership quality that I'd that I had. I believe it's a skill though. I think my skill got honed because I got so much feedback from my parents. Like honestly, I would do anything and they'd call the newspaper. And next thing I knew, like my pictures in the newspaper. So you kind of get used to that. However, know, influence is the key ingredient in success. And again, it's an inside out job, people can feel you, there are so many people that are ego driven, and you know that they're just out for their self, where there's other people that genuinely care. And when you speak from that part of yourself, like when I get on stages, and, you know, my my objective is transformation, like, I don't want to just go share some wisdom with you, like, you could go find that on chat GPT, like, I need to be able to unlock that next level of emotion for you to be like, that's it, I am going to do a morning routine tomorrow, or I'm going to make this decision, or it's time to go, you know, like create a plan to leave my W2, which is what you know, a lot of people that come to you are doing, right. And so when you look at influence, it should be something that everyone works on. And again, it's something that you can develop. And I've studied over a long period of time. So there's definitely a lot that you can learn about it. Jeff Dudan (54:43) It's amazing to me how many opportunities there are if you're willing to do it. You're getting ready to go on a trip to Europe for a month. It sounds like on the back of speaking opportunities. Where are you headed? Kelly Resendez (54:50) Hutter. Yes! Yeah, I am headed to well first stop is CAN and then F1 Monaco where I'll be speaking at an event there and then back to ⁓ CAN Lions later in June. Jeff Dudan (55:12) Unbelievable, right? Who would have thunk it? And you show up, you work for an hour. I don't know if you're gonna attend the event and learn and do all that kind of stuff. Kelly Resendez (55:21) Oh, yeah, one of them is on a yacht, Jeff, I'm going to be on that boat. And I'm bringing my son with me. So he'll also get to have an epic experience because of it. And honestly, like the speaking thing, talk about building authority and then getting to connect with amazing people too. mean, in every week, you know, I try not to speak more than once a week. That's about on average what I do just because it is a little taxing with travel. But what I would say is that it's like you get to meet people all over that are doing amazing things and you never know where that next big opportunity is. met you through somebody that I was talking to about a women's event that I was having and she and we just started to like go down this path. Jeff Dudan (56:01) OK. They just wanted to make sure that I didn't crash it? What was the conversation? Kelly Resendez (56:08) Yes! No! She was like, do you know Jeff? you know, do it in over at home front, like he's an amazing person in the home improvement space. And I might connect me and little did I know you and I would have so many things in common when it comes to mindset and business building. And then of course, then those connections become like, who do I know that can support you? I connected one of your guys with, you know, somebody that sells franchises so that she can put you guys out there more or I sent it to somebody else in Colorado that's trying to figure out what business she's in. And that's Jeff Dudan (56:34) right. Kelly Resendez (56:42) really where we get to this next level. Like when we're in abundance, I am seeking ways to support people like in as many ways as I that I can but a lot of those speaking opportunities are what have created the fact that I've never done a resume. I've never I've never had to ask for things that you know just end up coming into my life because I've been so clear on my vision. Jeff Dudan (57:11) My son's in the business and I'll just say this, and I've always said yes, even when I knew that I had an imposter syndrome. And I would always say yes to do a panel or to do ⁓ a talk or whatever it was. and really didn't do great, but. Kelly Resendez (57:21) Mmm. Jeff Dudan (57:30) you're getting reps. Like if you hear comedians say they have to work out all the time, like if they don't do something for a month or two, then they're not sharp, right? So if they're going to have a big gig, they'll go to the comedy stores in New York because they call it working out. It's like, if you're an athlete, you have to train. If you're a speaker, you need to stay sharp. You need to stay in the game. You need to stay near it. But my son, he works in the business and he'll get on with a franchise consultant or something. he the other day is like, you know, if I had a nickel for every time I'm on with one of these franchise consultants and they said 10 years ago, I was at a roundtable, your dad was leading and he said this, or I was in the audience of a panel that your dad was on and he said this and this is the impact. And you don't even realize, like, I don't even remember 3%. of those things that I did, but they constantly, you don't realize the impact that you're having by preparing, getting good information, delivering it in a way that people can act upon it, and then taking the chance to get out there. Every event needs speakers. Every event wants to provide ⁓ some educational value, some entertainment value, some inspiration value, whatever it is. And the question should be like, why not me? Why can't that be me doing that? And I really was, it was foist upon me because we were having success in the industry and I think people wanted to know a little bit. But then I really realized that how important it was and just, it's not fatal. You're not gonna die. If you die giving a talk in front of 400 people, it's not because you're giving the talk, it's because of other poor life choices that you've made up until that point that's killed you. So ⁓ we're gonna head towards the barn here in a minute, but. Kelly Resendez (58:48) You, Yeah. Final Thoughts Jeff Dudan (59:17) I don't want to get out of here because you've done so much work on this topic. What are some challenges that are unique to women entrepreneurs? We have many in home front brands in it's it's I mean, we have them in our temporary wall business. We have them in our design re business. We have a lot of women entrepreneurs and whether it's a spouse partner team or or a solo preneurs, whatever it is. like what are some unique challenges that women face because I know you with big voices and many of the other things that you do that you've taken so much time to invest in that particular space. Kelly Resendez (59:57) So I'm going to talk about four things that are like evidenced by data because I think, you know, for me, I look at, of course we're different. Number one, that's the first thing that I want to get across is like, let's just accept we're different. There's no such thing as equality with differences, period. Like I don't believe in equality. I believe in put the best person in the role, but ensure that they have adequate resources and access to the same networking opportunities and information that everyone else does, which is not what is fairly distributed today. And I'll get into that in a second. the four things, number one, women experience stress at a much higher level than men. And when you think about the impact of stress that affects the entire family unit, right? If mom comes home and mom's not doing well, everything in the world ends up not being okay. And so I think that women need to find a way to care differently. And it's, you know, it's not that it's not amazing that we care, but like, I can't care too much about what you think where it's going to impact me, right? I need to get really clear about that. people don't like it when I say that but I'm going to say it stress is optional find a way to do it without it period make that commitment put that on your goals who you're being again if you can be successful without stress just imagine what your life is going to look like and for the people that say you don't understand please don't tell me that like I've been in a world that has been again we're building a plane 14 years going a hundred thousand miles an hour at all times growing a multi-billion dollar company I've raised two kids I was a single mom 100% financially dependent on them. Losing my mom, my sister, and a mental institution. I just lost my niece recently. ⁓ Don't tell me that we have different worlds and I don't understand. I've done it without stress because I know the physical impact. The second thing is imposter syndrome. We experience imposter syndrome at higher levels. What I would tell you is that imposter syndrome is not bad, it's actually good. When you talked about getting outside of your comfort zone, if you don't have imposter syndrome regularly, you aren't thinking big enough. You need to get outside of it. Now this came a long way. I would have told you a year, two years ago, I don't have imposter syndrome. I was flying back from spending a couple days with John Maxwell in Florida at his home and we were recording and John gave me the most amazing gift that I've ever received in my entire life from somebody that I, you know, who I adore and I was just sitting there and I was just feeling like who am I like in his life, like that I'm the one that to help him with abundance and other things. Like I was just feeling it and then I was like, oh, this is what this feels like. And I was like, this is a good thing because I'm pushing myself to this next level of surrounding myself with with people that have amazing levels of influence in a positive way. So imposter syndrome, we must do it anyway. Like put the imposter in the driver's seat, keep moving in the direction that you want to go. So learn how to do that. Number three is guilt. We have a lot of guilt over our family, our kids. The number one rule that I always had was be present wherever I was. And I look at my priorities every morning in my morning ritual and make sure that I know like for me, it's God. am faith first. No matter what I read the Bible 365 days out of the year. I do my morning ritual with my goals. How do I want to feel I do visualization, journaling, meditation, and then if I'm working on a book, I write, but I'm really just in this position where I choose to live without guilt. Like, you know, we're gonna screw up our kids, we could be the best parents in the whole world, and we're gonna screw up our kids because we were too good a parents, right? Like, there's no, like, all we've got to be is present and show up with love and not overlay all of our ridiculous, you know, thinking we know everything belief system on them, like, let them come up with it. And the last thing is overthinking. You know, women are just super cerebral. And so when you start to have a better strategy in which that's what big voices is really around is all of the thoughts. do I really ensure that I stay in my big voice, which is my most authentic voice? Because we have a lot of voices that say, I should care too much about what you think. If you reject me, that's bad. There's a lot of things that go along with it. And so I say when we take those four things and we start to look at them differently and we start to support women on it, because where we don't have the same opportunity and I'll tell you you just really quickly, especially for the dads listening because you've probably been in business but you don't understand this. I get to have amazing relationships with the men that I work with and like I have amazing men, right? I mean, we make up less than 10 % of C-suite in most companies. So you have a lot more men than you do women. We can tell each other things, we can be in each other's lives, but when it comes down to it, I can't text you at eight o'clock at night, you can't invite me on the boat, we can't go to lunch every day because that would not be okay in your marriage, right? And so we aren't going to have the same opportunity, plain and simple. Like I've had to witness that here and it's not I don't think it's a bad thing but I think what we need to do as employers as and for men out there create networking opportunities for women where there isn't that awkwardness. So there's a lot of differences but I also know we make up 50 % of the population and diversity creates so much innovation and creativity that not having us in your boardrooms or on your executive teams or at the head of a company is just a grave mistake and a missed opportunity. Jeff Dudan (1:06:05) you do good work, Kelly. You've put the work in and you're doing great work. I've very much enjoyed having you on the home front today. Really appreciate it. Kelly Resendez (1:06:07) Yeah, absolutely. It's been such a pleasure being here. Jeff Dudan (1:06:19) All right, I've got a curveball and a fastball for you. before we do that, the curveball, before we do that, I would like you to let people know how to get in touch with you or where you would direct them if they want to learn more about you. Kelly Resendez (1:06:30) Yeah, absolutely. So you can always go to KellyRizendez.com and I'll get that over to you guys. I also have a free gift. You can go to downloadthepod.com and it's basically a three-part series on overcoming self-sabotage. And it's called Download the Pod because in GoBundance, we put you into pods of four to five people that really are the ones that kind of become your board of advisors in your life and your business and are going to be there to help you scale without sacrifice. Jeff Dudan (1:06:56) Mm. Kind of like a forum, I guess. Similar to a forum. ⁓ I like it. I like the unique language there. Okay, here's the curve ball. You're well traveled, incredibly experienced, and you have a lot of visibility into what's going on right now. And business is fast right now, especially with AI. ⁓ More change in 24 months than we probably had in the last 24 years. Kelly Resendez (1:07:02) Yeah, that's exactly... ⁓ Mm-hmm. Jeff Dudan (1:07:27) Gun to your head, something you care about deeply at risk. You have to create a brand new business in the next 30 days, and it's not something that you're currently active in. What would you do? If you had to create a business in the next 30 days, and it's not something that you're currently doing, where's the opportunity that you see? Kelly Resendez (1:07:48) Yeah, I believe where I would start a business is surrounded with matching investors with companies that need funding today. I think that there are a lot of people that would invest in amazing companies, whether it's, ⁓ you know, helping an entrepreneur kind of get to this next level, a startup or somebody that's already in late seed funding. I don't think that people are investing in companies, individual companies that the way that they should and they're Jeff Dudan (1:07:58) Mmm. Kelly Resendez (1:08:18) going and putting money in places that they have very little control. Because I believe mentorship is really the key, but I don't know that a lot of people have figured out how to do that. and where you'd be able to tell if a company was world positive or not a company that's making a positive impact in the world and with its people. Jeff Dudan (1:08:39) trend that I like in that space is things like Dan Martell and SaaS Academy, where he has a school for people to learn how to use software as a service businesses. then, you're giving them something that they could never get based on his experience. And then he has the opportunity to bring capital in addition to the intellectual capital. It can bring now human capital and then capital capital. And that's a model that I like a lot because it's like, you know, when I've lost money investing, it's like I didn't have any way to help these people. somebody's yeah, somebody's like, this is a great idea. like, it doesn't look like a great idea. They're like, I'm investing and they're like, okay, they're investing. then, but then you really, you know, I would rather again, I'd rather hedge my bets. Kelly Resendez (1:09:11) Yeah. Jeff Dudan (1:09:32) And if I can give, let's say somebody who's building a franchise or franchise organization, if I could help them be the very best version of their franchise self and get alongside of them to understand who they are, what are their values? Are they committed? Do they have resources? How do they handle stress? Are they willing to do the right thing when the right thing's hard? If I could understand all those things now, it's not just, I like the business that they're, I like the widget. Now I know who they are and I can probably make much smarter investments in that way. So I agree, but I also think there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of investing that is finance and spreadsheet based and maybe they're ignoring some of the intangibles. So I think that they could miss. Kelly Resendez (1:10:05) Absolutely. Well, I think you have to be honest. I look at a lot of pitch decks every week because I work with so many founders and a lot of times I have to be honest with them. Like I don't I don't see your market size. I don't see your story. I don't see it like sorry, like I'd rather be honest with them so they can go back to the table because what they don't realize is that the attachment to a failed business could be shortened so much like with truth, like if they actually stop mentorship because most of us have had failed opportunities or we've learned the hard way and people get so attached to some idea that you're like who's gonna buy this like seriously Jeff Dudan (1:11:06) yeah. Yeah. it's the bias we create. It's you know, everything's. ⁓ you know, I love this. I love this hammer. Now everything's a nail. And you're just I mean, I had a I had a I know he won't listen to this either, but I had a I had a tech guy. Right. And I mean, he was great. Kelly Resendez (1:11:17) Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Dudan (1:11:27) He was one of these, know, slept all day, worked all night, so that when I was building businesses, it was great because I could work all day and then I could work all night with him building technology and building platforms and all that. So it worked for me because it expanded my day when I was younger and I could work those hours. But man, once he decided on something, you couldn't get it undone. was all he did was work around his idea and he created such a hard bias. And it was like, I mean, he would almost tell you anything ⁓ without objectivity to get the solution that he had already decided on. it was, it cost me some money. Other times we had great successes, but it also cost me some money in some ways. Okay, so. Kelly Resendez (1:12:13) Just on that because I just want to add this one thing I think one of the greatest challenges for a business owner is deciding Do I invest in the technology myself and build it or do I go find and partner with other companies that have already done it? And I know for us, for you, whether it's, you know, working with the service Titans of the world or other companies that are out there, like sometimes you just have to call it and say, this isn't worth the energy right now or effort because like you said, the speed in which things are changing. Jeff Dudan (1:12:27) Yeah. Kelly Resendez (1:12:43) a year from now I might be able to talk into my phone and say please create a CRM that's going to book appointments like you never know where we're going to be and so we sink a lot of cost into things that might make more sense just going out and partnering with other really smart people that have already done it. Jeff Dudan (1:13:00) Yeah, I tend to agree, especially right now. I'm one for four in tech tech startups. you know, but hey, at least there was one. So least there was one could have been over four. All right. ⁓ Last question. This is the fastball right down Main Street. And you probably you have a lot to choose from here. I'm sure if you had one sentence. Kelly Resendez (1:13:12) Yeah. That's all. Jeff Dudan (1:13:28) to speak to somebody and make an impact in their life. What's your go-to sentence? Kelly Resendez (1:13:35) I own my joy. Jeff Dudan (1:13:38) Explain. Explain. Kelly Resendez (1:13:39) So that's my point. I own my joy. We give our joy away externally and we have since an early age, like the amount of approval that we seek from others, validation, the bank account balance, the, you know, awards on the wall or whatnot. When you start to recognize that it's an inside out job and that joy comes before. Jeff Dudan (1:13:45) Hmm. Kelly Resendez (1:14:02) Like most of us live in if only. If only I had more time. If only I had this. And like when you get to this place where you own your joy and you don't allow the external world, no matter what it is that's going on to have an impact on it, you become unstoppable. Jeff Dudan (1:14:22) perfectly said. Kelly, thank you so much for being on. Kelly Resendez (1:14:26) Thank you. This has been a great pleasure, Jeff. And I love everything that you're doing over there at Homefront Brands. And I look forward to more opportunities to connect. Jeff Dudan (1:14:36) We will do great things. This has been Kelly Resendez with Jeff Duden and we have been on the home front. Thanks for listening. To hear more insights like these, subscribe to On the HomeFront wherever you get your podcasts.

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