From Fit to Flourish:

Jeff Walter (00:05)

 

Hi, I’m Jeff Walter here for another episode of the Training Impact Podcast. It’s funny. Sometimes I stumbled on the own. It must be Monday. I stumbled on the name of my own F

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(00:13)

Thank

 

Jeff Walter (00:20)

franchise sales organization. They help franchises grow their network. He’s got a lot of great insights on what makes for a great franchise or, and what franchise you should look in it. And then from that, you can extrapolate, you know, what a franchise or should be doing to train their franchisees for success.

 

So I’d like to introduce today’s guest, Patrick Sanchez. Patrick is the vice president of branded partnerships with Franchise Fastlane. He’s been there for six years. He’s been in the franchise space for over 10 years. Patrick, welcome to the podcast. We’re having a lot of fun.

 

Why don’t you tell us all, I’m always interested in how you ended up where you’re at. So tell us a little bit about how’d you end up as a VP of branded partnerships at a franchise fast lane and what does franchise fast lane do?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(01:01)

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Yeah, without a doubt. And thanks for having me on here as well. And apologies in advance because my brand still turned on this Monday too. But just like ⁓ many individuals in the franchise industry, I’m going to say the cliche and I know everyone’s going to cringe a little bit, but I fell into franchising without a doubt. Before I jump into it though, Franchise Fastlane, we are an FSO, a franchise sales organization. So we focus on working with franchisors, identifying the right partners, taking them through a

 

pretty extensive list before partnering with them to be able to help them identify the correct franchise partners that they need to help grow their system, making sure that those partners are contributing, they’re helping innovate. And then of course they’re doing great from a financial performance standpoint. But we’re a bit unique. We’re a top producer within the industry, but we also have a one of one program, which is more of a coaching or done with you style of model. So we have a program that meets emerging franchisers where they’re at, but then we also have a program that’s that full service FSO for those.

 

ones that are really trying to grow fast. So yeah, as far as my background goes, up in Kansas. Like I said, kind of fell into this. was working construction. So I grew up, you know, framing houses, pouring concrete, things like that. And I was going into a small little nutrition store to get my protein and my multivitamins. And the owner there, Brent Kramer, fantastic individual. He invested a lot of time in it. And he said, Hey, you know, instead of breaking your body, why don’t you come over here and work for me full time? And so I did that.

 

Just one location. ⁓ And again, he did a lot. He encouraged me to continue going to school, really taught me how to really own my responsibilities. And we went from one location to five across the course of about two or three years. And then he was acquired by another gentleman named Eric. And Eric was just a force, man. He came in and went from five locations to 170. So for several of those locations, I’d fly out there or drive out there. I’d spend six, seven months.

 

Jeff Walter (02:50)

Bye bye.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(02:56)

hire, fire, kind of get it stood up for the acquisitions and for the new builds. And I ended up having about 12 stores underneath my responsibility, going from Gillette, Wyoming, all the way over to the West coast and Oregon and Nevada and California. And after doing that for several years, I loved to travel, you know, as a young guy, but didn’t really get any roots anywhere. And I realized, man, doing a lot for Eric, so I should do it for myself. So when I opened my own location,

 

Ran that for several years, exited that business, met my fantastic wife, did a couple of things for passion on the side. And I was approached by many fast laners and they said, Hey, you know, come on over here. You’re going to enjoy it. We’re a great team. And so as you mentioned, I’ve been here for coming up on six years now. I was a director, so I did the sales for several concepts, including automotive, food, home service, also did some youth enrichment. And then was a VP of development. So I handled my directors and their respective brands.

 

And then I was able to graduate into ⁓ being the VP of brand partnerships. So getting to speak with Franchise Wars on a daily basis to just identify, where can we help as it relates to you acquiring new franchisees? And that’s kind of it.

 

Jeff Walter (04:05)

And did

 

you sell the location? You said you opened up a location. So I guess you were a franchisee, one unit franchisee?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(04:14)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. I was a franchisee. took over an existing location up in Northern California. ⁓ whenever I wrapped that up, I ended up just closing it. You know, I got myself into a pretty, good position to where the SBA loan and all that, that was acquired. was flushed on it. And so I was really looking at, do I want to stay here? do I want to continue what I’m doing? Do I want to renew the agreement or I want to move on and do something else? And at that time it was the, I checked the box. So let’s see what we can do and what’s next.

 

Jeff Walter (04:31)

Thanks.

 

So what do you enjoy the most about what you’re doing? Because you’ve got a real positive energy, Which I love, it’s great, it’s awesome. from BPA Brand Partnerships, what does that mean and what do you like about

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(04:58)

Yeah, so as far as brand partnerships goes, I mean, it’s really being able to identify the culture, the mission and vision within these franchisors we meet with and just really see like, are we able to get married? Do I see that same mission, vision, values that we have over here at the Fastlane demonstrated within their system? So that way we have confidence as we bring new franchisees into their system that they’re gonna change their lives. They’re gonna be able to take a B player or a C player.

 

turn them into an A plus operator and start to impact their community. And I think that that’s really what I enjoy the most about it is just being able to touch or have a slight impact on being able to then influence a franchise or as they start to change other people’s lives as well. I mean, transparently love construction, still do it on an ongoing basis, but that’s probably all I would have ever done if I wasn’t given that opportunity of franchising.

 

So I just like being able to be a small piece of seeing that influence happen with other people as well.

 

Jeff Walter (05:58)

Well, it’s one of the cool things about the industry is that, know, business ownership, I’ve owned a business for over 20 years and it’s like home ownership, right? It’s like home ownership just changes how you look at the world and business ownership just changes how you look at the economy and everything. And the beautiful thing about the whole franchise industry is giving people an opportunity to be part of that.

 

set of business owners and it just ⁓ tremendously. it’s really cool. when you start looking at that, when you look at franchise ors to represent, and marrying them with the franchisees, what makes a good franchise or? Because there are great franchise ors and there are the average run of the mill guys and there are the, these guys don’t really have their stuff together. And especially when you get down to the emerging and developing.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(06:24)

you

 

Jeff Walter (06:48)

You know, got a lot of really great people there, but you know, a lot of times they haven’t necessarily systematized everything that makes it easy to communicate to another person. Right. So, so what makes for a good franchise or to represent and therefore a good franchise, a good franchise for somebody to buy into.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(07:06)

Yeah, that is a that’s a rabbit hole of a question. That’s that’s

 

Jeff Walter (07:09)

We’ve got

 

some time. We’ve got some time. Just softballs, nothing but softballs.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(07:13)

I think the first, yeah, I think

 

the first thing that’s more important or most important I should say is, founder fit. know, you’ve got, you’re a crazy person if you’re a founder. mean, being able to be both the, like the innovator as well as the executor identify that solution that needs to be in place and create it out of thin air, but then also put it into a digestible manager for, somebody that

 

doesn’t have any exposure or experience within your industry. mean, the first thing I always look at is the founder. Are you a gritty individual? Do you have a passion and a care for being able to really influence that franchisee? And when things get bleak and dark and tough, because we all know that that happens consistently in business ownership, are you going to be able to wade the waters with that franchisee and help them come out on top on the other side of that? I mean, I could, I could go on and on about the qualities and the characteristics that I would look for within a founder.

 

But I think it boils down to three fundamentals as far as the actual business is concerned for the franchisor. How do you identify your clients? Once the client is identified, then how do you actually sell that individual on your service? And then the last piece is fulfillment, you know, for the franchisee or for you as the franchisor, what does the hiring process look for, like for the employees? What is the consistent education or innovation look like? So that way you can consistently improve.

 

I think it really just boils down to those things. Acquisition, selling, and then servicing.

 

Jeff Walter (08:35)

So in terms of now, when you said it was down to those three things, so, know, so I’m, let’s say I’m a friend, uh, I’m one those crazy founders, you know, and I’ve got this great idea and I produced it and I’m, you know, I’ve got, uh, you know, let’s put me in the emerging category and I’m, you know, I’ve got a couple of company owned stores. Maybe I got a few franchises that, know, through sheer force of my personality, cause you know, a lot of those guys are very, they just have, you know, you just get caught up, right? Um, I’m able to do all that.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(09:02)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (09:05)

But what’s the, how do you, how, does, you’re looking at these, these, emerging or developing going from, well, here’s this great, okay, you got the founder, he’s passionate or she’s passionate. how does that translate into that last part that you said is like being able to convey that system to a, you know, an equally passionate person is putting their own money on the line. Right.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(09:30)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (09:31)

but may not know how to identify prospects, close prospects, and then all the operational aspects about fulfillment. Because in most large businesses, those are three different jobs. ⁓ VP of marketing, VP of sales, and ⁓ chief operating officer.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(09:44)

Mm-hmm. Yep, you’re 100 % correct.

 

Yeah, we can, we can definitely slow that down a little bit. And, ⁓ I’m a little bit annoying. Like if anybody that looks at any of the content that I put out, that’s listening to this, you know, I always talk about system, system, systems. I mean, I’m really repetitive about it. And so with identifying clients, for example, when I’m working with a prospective franchisee, very rarely are they checking each one of those boxes as far as, yeah, they have sales experience. They cold called, they had to do hard sales or they had to nurture an individual.

 

They don’t always have sales and operations or sales and marketing and operations. It’s usually they’re really, really good at one area. And then it’s the franchisors responsibility to have that process in place to really fill in those blanks for the franchisee. So with identifying clients, I think that that’s probably one of the biggest areas, call it marketing, that the majority of franchise or that are emerging really need to dial it. Cause most doors, they made it successful in their backyard and they’re assuming, okay, if I did it in Boise, Idaho,

 

Jeff Walter (10:37)

Mm-hmm.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(10:49)

then that means it’s going to work in Houston, Texas. And that’s not the case, you know, different socioeconomics, demographics, so on and so forth. most franchisors, you know, maybe they started the interest within their backyard because there’s a natural need or they’re really good at guerrilla marketing. They’re the mayor, the town personality, they’re building relationships. Franchisees that they work with aren’t always going to be like that. So do you have a in-house marketing team or solution or third party marketing team and solution?

 

for that franchisee to begin to allocate spend, monitor the return and know on a mathematical basis, if I do X amount of spend with X amount of attention, I’m gonna have X amount of at bats for me to be able to actually influence this market and get this location off the

 

Jeff Walter (11:32)

So would you say most of the franchisees are more on the operational side or, therefore not so much on the, on definitely not on a marketing and then can, can use some help on the, on the sales side.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(11:46)

Yeah, I think it depends on the category, but me personally, with all the placements that I’ve done, the majority of the time the candidates really air towards the marketing acumen a little bit, or at least understanding of it and operations. The majority of folks that I connect with that have a good amount of sales experience, you know, they’ve been able to catapult their careers and make themselves very valuable to a lot of companies. Usually when I have a sales minded individual approach us as a franchisee, ⁓ it’s because they’re in a position to where, man, I’ve been doing this.

 

Jeff Walter (11:49)

Right. Yeah.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(12:14)

Kind of like me, been doing this a lot with somebody else. It’s time to do it for myself.

 

Jeff Walter (12:15)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

But just shifting gears, do you miss running the show on your own or?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(12:24)

I do, you know, I was thinking about that before we hopped on together. I definitely do. My wife and I, she’s fantastic. She’s very operationally minded. She’s a really good implementer and integrator. But we bounced around quite a bit. Boise is the longest place we’ve lived anywhere for a long time now. And we’re starting to get that itch again. So, you know, it’s kind of tough to commit to a 10-year agreement when I know we’re probably going to pick up and move.

 

Jeff Walter (12:46)

Yeah. yes, as a business owner. Yes. It’s, that, that, that was actually, it’s funny you say that because, ⁓ my wife and I had moved out here, ⁓ to Ann Arbor, back in the early two thousands. And, ⁓ yeah, we’re that’s part of this internet startup thing that was going to be the next Microsoft and nobody’s heard of them because they didn’t become the next Microsoft Google did. ⁓ And anyway, when, things were, yeah, I was given the opportunity to spin off the office.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(13:06)

Hahaha.

 

Jeff Walter (13:12)

And it was that exact conversation we had was, we’re from New York area, or New York, and it was like, we were going to come out here to Ann Arbor, boatload of stock options, four years, cash out, have our drop dead money and go home. And two years in, was ⁓ heading south pretty bad.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(13:30)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (13:35)

And, and, it was, was, I was given the opportunity to, to spin off the office and do a management pie out. was the same. It was the same thing you just said was, um, well, if we do this, we’re not heading home in two years. We’re in Ann Arbor. And here we are 20, I am 25 years later. So, uh, you know, you definitely have to that commitment. know, so I’m sorry, just shifting back to where we were. Um, so.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(13:43)

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (14:04)

So you got that, so you got that, that’s on a franchise already. You talked about like founder fit and do they have that vision? Have they, you know, systematize things? What, if you were a franchisee, how would you know that those things are systematized? I think I understand what you mean, but I’m a lifelong consultant and build processes and systems for large companies. you know, and like, so I have a very distinct understanding of what that means, but I’m just thinking of the, you know, the,

 

the uninitiated, like how would they know that there’s a system there for marketing? Yo. And I liked the way you said it. There’s, know, identifying the people you want to sell to selling to them and then fulfilling. And man, if you can do those streets, I mean, that’s the secret of every fricking business I’ve ever been involved in. And, ⁓ and my, my, my, my secret sauce has always been and do a great job fulfilling and then they’ll invite you back and they’ll, it’s a, it’s a really sophisticated, ⁓

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(14:49)

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s right.

 

Jeff Walter (15:01)

you know, strategy, do a good job and the less you do more. But, know, if you are, have never been a business owner or, or even run a department or, you know, or, ⁓ or, something, you know, ⁓ how would you know that, know, cause everybody’s going to say, nobody goes, I have a crappy system for marketing, you know, and, and, and, know, you got to figure out how to just fulfill it on your own. Everybody comes down and says,

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(15:20)

Right. Everyone has the best thing.

 

Jeff Walter (15:29)

You know, our stuff is buttoned down, rock solid, airtight. You can’t miss. You give us a dollar, you’ll make a million. You know, everybody says that, but, you know, as a franchisee, you’ve got to be able to distill that and go, well, what, you know, what makes for a good systematic marketing sales and fulfillment? how, like, how would I know that as a, you know, not somebody who’s never run a business and maybe never done marketing, right? Or I’ve never done operations. Like how would I.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(15:56)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (15:59)

How would I know?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(16:00)

Yeah, that’s a, that’s another really good question. I’ll, I’ll keep to my rules of three here. So the first one I would say is just using your resources. You know, there’s, there’s industry experts, right? if you are trying to get better at a particular area or understand it, then you should lean on a coach or a piece of influence that can help you identify those things. So that’s why FSOs are really important. The ones that are doing a good job vetting and identifying the brands that are ready to grow. So you have that extra layer of security.

 

and leveraging also like a franchise consultant within the space that can really unpack for a franchise perspective franchisee where the areas that they’re falling short based off of what they’re looking for and what Zores do I know that are going to be able to help fill those blanks. So that’d be the first thing, just really leveraging individuals within the space. But as it relates specifically to, I’d say qualifying, if a brand checks those appropriate boxes, it would be historical operation history.

 

Especially for emerging Zores seeing if they have a few different corporate locations that are manager ran that are in different regions Where a franchise or can really kind of work themselves into a corner is they are wearing all the hats You know, they’ve got one or two locations, which is great, but there may be within 15 20 minutes of each other They’re driving to them every single day and they really truly haven’t created the systems that can then delegate those responsibilities Which means it’s probably not duplicatable across various parts of the nation

 

So historical operation history, what locations are they in, et cetera, which can mean in theory, okay, they’ve got those systems in place. But the third one I’d mentioned and the absolute most important is just research as it relates to franchisee validation, picking up the phone, calling those franchisees, understanding the good, bad and ugly within the business model. Cause again, it gets tough and really validate what they’re hearing from the brand on, Hey,

 

Mr. Mrs. Franchise or said that they’ve got the perfect call setting, closing appointments, that are whatever you need for your acquisition. Have you actually experienced that? And seeing it played out firsthand from somebody that took the leap and made the decision themselves.

 

Jeff Walter (18:02)

So getting that endorsement from other franchisees, know, leaning on, so if I hear you correctly, there’s a number of folks in the industry that you can lean on, and you may or may not have any relationship with them to begin with so that, know, how much you could, there’s always the thing of trust, right? And if you’re…

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(18:06)

Yep, correct.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (18:28)

If you’re new to the whole thing, it’s not that you don’t trust folks, but it’s not like my uncle said it’s a good thing, right? ⁓ Yeah. But you start building that. you lean on some folks in the industry and then you can start, if you get multiple inputs, you’ll start to see a pattern emerge. Is that a good way of thinking of it?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(18:34)

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Yeah, without a doubt, because I don’t think that with proving or identifying that a franchise or a business has all the systems in place is just, you know, you know, magic piece that’s going to really make everything fit for you. It is a combination of those three things, leveraging your resources and really making sure you’re getting feedback from others that have already been down.

 

Jeff Walter (19:02)

Right.

 

Very cool. And, and, and so when, when you guys, when franchise fast lane looks at representing somebody is, it those types of things you’re looking for? And then, and then you’re trying to do a good match or, you know, help, help me understand a little bit more about the role and FSO plays and, and how, cause it’s a matchmaker thing. Right. But, but you’ve got a portfolio firms you’re representing, right? Like, like, how does that help?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(19:25)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (19:36)

Help me understand, I’m new to this.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(19:38)

Yeah, yeah, I’ll water it down big time. mean, ultimately we’ve got a vetting process that has dozens and dozens of boxes that have to be checked. And it’s not just me making the decision over here as well. We’ve got a huge team as it relates to our CO or CDO or founder or co-founder that whenever there’s a prospective brand that we’re thinking, man, this might be a really good fast lane fit. You know, we’re making sure that it’s a democratic kind of conversation to where we make sure that it is just that an ideal fit.

 

But the why behind a franchise we’re wanting to work with us is it does take a lot of time to find that needle in the haystack of a good operator. I think the average industry closing percentage for just organic interest within a brand is about 0.5%. So that means one out of every 200 people that’s interested in a business model actually have the applicable business acumen, the liquidity, the ability to be successful within that model.

 

And so that’s a lot of work, especially if you’re really focusing on making sure your franchisees are successful within your systems, adding that layer of identifying prospective franchisees is just a whole different ballgame. So we really step in so that way, we’re not cooks, cleaners, and dishwashers. The franchisor is focusing on getting the franchisees open, operational, and scaling. And we are hyper-focused on identifying that proper buying avatar that they’re looking for and educating them throughout the opportunity.

 

Jeff Walter (21:05)

And how do you find those folks? how do you identify those potential franchisees? Not to give away any magic sauce secrets, but…

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(21:10)

Yeah, yeah.

 

No, no, it’s a

 

good question. And I’m going to tie it all the way back to the very beginning. You know, it’s having a very, very fluid marketing system in place. So where we really have a good amount of expertise is we have relationships with those industry experts, with those consultants within the world, with those coaches that they say, man, here’s this really good person. You know, he’s ready to move forward or ready to identify the next opportunity. So they have that relationship. But then the other is just within making sure that

 

Jeff Walter (21:30)

huh.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(21:43)

we’re properly positioning the brand opportunity in a digestible fashion to where somebody that is looking into going into business ownership for themselves, they can look at a business model after meeting with one of our directors or vice presidents, and we can really break it down for them in a simple and easy to understand way. So then they can begin to do those key pieces of validation, et cetera, that we mentioned.

 

Jeff Walter (22:06)

Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. You mentioned the, uh, one in 200, you know, the 0.5 % conversion and that’s getting them in the door. Uh, is there any data or fit on how six relative success rates? Right. Like I could see the getting them in, but ostensibly, if you had a better fit, like, I think the lesson I’m taking away from this conversation is, know, it’s all about fit, right?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(22:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (22:34)

And, ⁓ and, making sure that, you know, you as a franchisee fit with the franchise or on a bunch of dimensions. And, ⁓ and then you’re seeking a bunch of different data points, you know, to confirm it, to see it, is it a good fit? And, and, and that’s not just systems. That’s also personality. That’s also culture of the organization. and it doesn’t say that one culture is better or worse than the other.

 

But what does mean is like, if, you know, if it’s not your type of environment, you know, if it’s a chill environment and you’re a go, go, go person, it’s going to be frustrating. If it’s a go, go, go environment and you’re a chill type of person, it’s going to be stressful. Uh, and you’re looking for that, that, kind of fit thing. So, but is there any, um, cause I, gotta believe what you’re to your point. It’s that it’s that, uh, it’s that specialization of an S FSO, right?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(23:08)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (23:27)

You’re specializing in identify and closing individuals and looking for that fit. Is there any data on, you know, the success of franchisees if they came into the system directly versus through an FSO or anything, anything like that? I’m curious.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(23:42)

Yeah,

 

that’s a fantastic question. I’m not sure. I know that there’s a pretty well-known company in the industry called Fran Data, and they spent a lot of time really diving into that and identifying what does a success rate look like within a particular model? I believe so, at least, so hopefully I’m not speaking out of turn. But I think I’m being specular here without having any kind of hard data in front of me. But the FSOs, the franchisors, regardless of where

 

Jeff Walter (23:50)

Uh-huh.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(24:09)

the, we’ll call it candidate opportunities coming from as long as they really peg the proper brand positioning and be very transparent and clear, no surprises about the amount of effort it takes to operate within that system. And they are to your point meeting them in person for that confirmation day or team day. And they’re making sure that there’s as much data as possible for the candidate to, really absorb and understand. I mean, that’s where you try and have the best success rate as possible on the

 

Jeff Walter (24:38)

Yeah.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(24:38)

the outcome. do think some emerging franchisors, they get a little trigger happy. They think, man, I built this model, it’s successful, so I’m going to award this business to anybody with a pulse. And that’s where they can really get themselves in trouble. One thing that I’m a big proponent of is culture is not just established from day one. It’s not this intuitive, natural thing that occurs. It’s something that you have to make and you have to spend a lot of time making.

 

Jeff Walter (25:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(25:06)

So kind of to your point, and I think what you’re getting at is you really do have this percentage of, you know, making sure that the boxes are checked, the education is there, but it boils down to also that gut feeling of meeting someone in person, looking at them in the eyes, shaking their hand and making sure they don’t have horns in the tail and you’re going to have a happy marriage together.

 

Jeff Walter (25:24)

And it is a marriage. I always think of, I look at sales as I’m always in it for the long haul. And so it’s always a marriage. And the only thing different is we get to have multiple partners. You get married multiple times, but it is that process. it’s very interesting. So this is the Training Impact Podcast.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(25:26)

It is marriage. Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (25:50)

I got the name right that time, so good for me. ⁓ So have you seen from a training program perspective that the franchisors are putting out? Do they make a difference in these evaluations? they help people be more successful? type of training? What do you generally see from an emerging, developing and established franchisor in terms of what would typical training program?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(25:53)

you

 

Yeah, I mean, all these rabbit hole questions that we could just keep going in the wind. This is great. I wish I could have more of our team on the call too.

 

Jeff Walter (26:23)

I’m a very curious guy. you know,

 

I just, I’m trying to sit there. What, could I learn from Patrick today? ⁓

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(26:29)

No.

 

Man, again, so many different directions that we can take it and I’m going to piece together some of the more, I’d say, important things that need to exist within a franchise or model. But when we look at initial training, one thing that still catches me off guard, I still meet business owners sometimes that they don’t have a really well-established CRM and they’re still tabulating things on Excel or

 

or something that they put together together like a combination of hard ways of tracking data. But I think what is most important first is an LMS. So what kind of system is in place, a learning management system, where a franchisee can self-guide through the educational process of the critical components of that business model. So when we talk about the individual has been acquired, now the individual needs to ⁓ be sold or see the opportunity of the solution that they’re looking for.

 

Making sure that in the LMS you’ve got recordings, best practices, pitches, know, materials that can print off and used and for training the employees. So making sure there’s a centralized location that has a lot of that data just from a base level and then everything else can be kind of filled in by the franchisor. So that’s the most important one for me day one.

 

Jeff Walter (27:43)

And that’s the, allows for the self study. know, like a lot of models I see, especially on the emerging side is come to headquarters for a couple of weeks, go hang out at a corporate store for a couple of weeks, and then we’ll send somebody to your place when you’re ready to open your doors for a couple of And I, you know, and that’s, that’s great, but it’s, it to me, it’s, it’s not sustainable. Right. So, so, so, so.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(27:49)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (28:13)

having a place where you can go, anybody that’s not in LMS, because you can have video libraries, PDF libraries, other things like that. And LMS is nice, well, we make an LMS, so we believe in LMSs. But it’s nice from a tracking standpoint and a certification standpoint. But I think the key there is having the materials and having the materials available to folks in an easy, consumable way. So that’s pretty cool. And then do you see those programs kind of morphing?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(28:35)

Mm-hmm. Yep. Correct.

 

Jeff Walter (28:41)

As you go from that emerging guy with a half a dozen, dozen locations, and maybe they got a bunch of training videos in a library somewhere. then, know, kind of somebody gets in like, did you see programs evolving over time? Like, because you said, you know, you’ve got some guys that are established franchises and, know, but maybe they’re regionally focused or they’re regionally strong in the Northeast and they want to open up a bunch of locations to the Southwest. know, but they already got, you know, 200 locations, right?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(29:07)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (29:11)

They bring you guys in go, Hey, we want to go into the north, you know, the Southwest now. And, you’re like, okay. And they’ve got all their ducks in a row and they check all your boxes and they’ve got all those parts. Yeah. Do you see differences in training programs there in terms of how they evolve or, or not so much.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(29:27)

I absolutely do. One thing to think about for these franchisors that are emerging is I have a lot of conversations with them that they’re not really focused on the future, which is fine, because at that point in their franchise or lifecycle, they’re focused on obtaining new franchisees, getting them open and successful from just a, you know, from a standard expectation. Where a franchisee gets really upset is when they’re at year four or five, six.

 

And they’re not feeling like there’s a justified return on support for what they’re paying out within the royalties. And so as it relates to training and success specifically, the two things that I really love seeing with a established franchise or that’s a good indicator that they’re future proofing their franchisee success is having an FAC, a franchise advisory committee in place of the top or average performing franchisees within their system.

 

Jeff Walter (29:59)

Right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(30:20)

that are giving them feedback on here’s what needs to fix based off of where we are within our lives. And then the second step of that, and this is another pitfall that franchisors run into quite a bit, is don’t fall out of touch with what it looks like within operating today and now. So for example, I see some franchisors sell off their corporate locations when they hit a certain milestone. And again, that’s fine. It’s very dependent on what that franchisor is looking to accomplish. But I’m fond of holding onto that.

 

Jeff Walter (30:24)

Okay.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(30:48)

because that means as world breaking situations occur like COVID, then that franchise was in the weeds figuring it out real time to then disseminate that experience and information to their franchisees. So taking that, applying it to, there’s a lot of different names for this, but like an FBC, a franchise business consultant that is regionally focused on the success of their franchise partners that’s spending physical time with them in their location to not only monitor and maintain and the expectations for success.

 

Jeff Walter (31:05)

Right.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(31:17)

but then also to implement new systems that are maybe not being implemented because the franchisee doesn’t have any accountability to implement those systems.

 

Jeff Walter (31:25)

So let’s take, those are interesting. So if we look at the FAC, the advisory council.

 

What point in the development of a franchise or do you usually see that emerge? You know, like, you know, is it 10 units, a hundred units, thousand, you know, like, like you gotta have some franchise or ease out there first and sort of before you can have a council. Right. So it’s not happening at the, I’ve got five corporate locations and one, or I should say actually strike that back. would imagine at the emerging level, it’s much more informal because the franchise or, and especially the founder knows.

 

all the franchisees intimately, right? And so there’s no formal board because, you know, they’re in there and they know them all, but it seems like it’s a certain point. gets so, you want to formalize that. And I, is, that, would you say like at the 50 unit level, the a hundred unit level, like, or

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(32:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

So this is

 

another one of those, I’d say answers that it kind of depends on the person you’re talking to in the franchise or, ⁓ just like you said, though, in the beginning, I mean, you should fully intend on taking the feedback of your franchisees, but it is more of an informal relationship. You know, your first 15, 20 franchisees buy into a model based off of the story of the founder and the model, not so much because of the widget. but I think personally, when you hit that, that 10, 15 franchisee milestone,

 

Jeff Walter (32:46)

Mm-hmm.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(32:47)

That’s where you’re starting to find your, your five, 10 % of performers that you really need to have a consistent meeting with them, whether that’s on a quarterly basis or twice a year, whatever it may be to start to get those nuggets of information and feedback from them again, in a very formal setting with nearly set conversation topics.

 

Jeff Walter (33:04)

Right, right. Yeah. And that’s what I’m talking about. Like I imagine at the very beginning, it’s very informal. And then at some point it’s like, I could see two things happening. One as the founder or CEO of that franchise or you get so focused on opening up new stores and other things. know, mean, all these things that are smacking you in the face and sucking up your time that, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if you wake up one day and it’s been two years since you’ve gone to, ⁓ you know,

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(33:08)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (33:31)

when you’re top performing or your top performing guys and, ⁓ and said, Hey, how’s it going? What can we do better? Right. so that’s interesting. That would be, that’d be earlier than I thought. And you know, that, you know, when you, once you got a couple of dozen or so, you want to start to formalize the process so that you don’t get that gap where you get distracted. ⁓

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(33:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

And the reason why I say that personally, I mean, you know, as, as you get new personalities to expand into different regions, et cetera, of course your business model is going to change. And especially as you’re just, know, you’re, you’re pivoting based off of what the world’s thrown at you within that moment. But kind of like I said, where culture is not, you know, an intuitive thing, like it’s made, you have to be very intentional about it. The systems that you start to build and put in stone today are the ones that are going to help make sure that it’s future-proofed. And so again, just.

 

Jeff Walter (33:59)

Mm-hmm.

 

Right.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(34:18)

leaning on your resources, getting the feedback of your franchisees in the beginning, those first 10, 15, they’re going to make or break your model. And so it’s so important to depend.

 

Jeff Walter (34:26)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Well, it makes sense. You know, if you go back to what you said earlier, I mean, those are the, those are the references that the next 50 are going to use. Right. And then, and then rinse and repeat those 50 are going to be the next references to the next hundred years. And it’s a, it’s interesting. So, so that, so, so the one thing was get that, council or, you know, that formal feedback mechanism in place early.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(34:35)

Exactly.

 

Jeff Walter (34:54)

And then I like your other one too. It’s really interesting because the couple of practices, I was a lifelong consultant before I was in consulting before I did the LMS thing. And even that, and I practice something similar to that. We always believed in back in my old firm, working manager, right? It’s like, want to, you know, and I had one partner at one of my practices. He always, he came from the technical side.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(35:11)

Mm.

 

Jeff Walter (35:21)

And he always reserved a handful of technical tasks for him, even though he was a practice manager, right? Because he always wanted to keep his hands dirty. So he knew what was, so he would have that intuitive sense of what’s going on, you know, with the technology, with the clients and all that. And, and it’s funny that you mentioned that, cause I practiced the same thing in latitude where I’ll, I’ll get my hands dirty in a sale and take a lead or take an, you know, it’s like,

 

And then a lot of people will be like, oh, you’re the CEO. I’m like, yeah. And they’re like, what are you doing doing this? I’m like, well, funny you ask, I’d like to actually know what the hell’s going on. You know, well, it’s that primary. And I think of it as primary market research, right? Like I don’t need to be doing that, you know, trying to close that deal or take that lead or that, but, but I’m getting primary market research. And so I like what you’re saying in terms of.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(35:54)

Thank you.

 

Haha

 

Jeff Walter (36:16)

as the franchisors grow is, you keep a couple of those units to yourself as corporate owned. And that’s, that’s your primary market research as to what’s going on in the space. Right. Cause you know, like you said, something like COVID happens or even, know, a regional thing or, changing tastes if you’re in a, in a restaurant business or anything actually, know, changing tastes or changing, physical tastes or fashion tastes, or, just how you interact with the folks. It’s a.

 

Yeah, it’s interesting. That’s really cool. That’s pretty cool. Yeah.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(36:46)

Yeah, I started smiling

 

because I don’t know why I remember this and it stood out so much. But when I mentioned that there were those 12 stores I was responsible for, I mean, they weren’t, they weren’t 12 stores in Dallas, Fort Worth. was, it was truly Gillette, Wyoming, Reno, Nevada, Redding, California, Eugene and Corvallis, Oregon. mean, they were, they were all over the place. And I remember we were sitting down with all of our, our, um, area managers at the time. And I did just that without realizing it whenever I was in the location, I usually took about

 

10 or 15 % of the tickets just so that way I could make sure the items per transaction, average ticket, the actual information we need to gather for the sales process was being done. And at that time I almost got scolded for it. And now I see in retrospect that was the right thing to do.

 

Jeff Walter (37:29)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, well, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s one of those catch 22 things, right? It’s like, no, your time is much more valuable. Like as you, as you go up in your career, right. And you’re, you’re, you’re, have a larger domain of, of responsibility. Like your time becomes exceedingly valuable to do these things that are, that have tremendous value to the organization. And, know, what are you doing getting your hands dirty, flipping a burger or, know, buttoning this down or coding that or, or that.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(37:47)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (38:02)

And it wasn’t until I thought of it as primary market research that it bugged me because it was like, I’m doing this from a gut level. it’s like, yeah, it makes no sense. I’m managing a $20 million practice. What am I doing? Picking up this task on this little project for this one client. But then once I started thinking of it as primary market research, I was like, oh, okay.

 

I’m not doing it so that I can do this one little, you know, take that ticket, right? I’m doing this because I’m getting primary market research on is the process working? there any hiccups? Where, where might we want to improve it? What’s the customer feedback? is this working for the franchisees? You know, that it’s, it kind of changes. So I really liked, I really liked those two things. The, the advisory council.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(38:31)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (38:50)

And, ⁓ and keeping some corporate stores. I, I would add that back into, what you’re saying before, when you’re evaluating, a franchise or as a franchisee is like, look, if they, if they’re growing in there, keeping their stores and they have this advisory council, which you may or may, you may never be on, but the fact that there’s this formal mechanism for getting feedback from the, from the franchisees back to corporate, ⁓ it’s not just informal. think that’s really important. So.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(39:14)

absolutely.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (39:19)

All right. Well, ⁓ that was really interesting. there, yeah. Well, you know, I, I, know, the listeners get bored because I says most episodes, but I learned something. So that’s good. I just love learning stuff. That was really testing. ⁓ before we set off, you know, it is a training podcast and learning podcast. So, I like to ask folks like, so outside of work, what do you like to learn about?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(39:23)

I’m happy you think so.

 

man, ⁓ you know, I’m a young guy. So I would say honestly, it’s a problem if I’m not consuming information focused on bettering myself in the workspace. know, I’m in that grind period of my life, but to actually give you a solid answer.

 

Jeff Walter (39:44)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

That

 

doesn’t have to be professionally oriented. earlier this year, my girls said they were going to do a half Ironman. I got two daughters and they’re marathon runners. And I said, Hey dad, this year, instead of marathon, we’re going to go do this Ironman thing. And I was like, Hey, can I join you? I’m like, yeah. So the first time I did a half marathon in my life was the third leg of a half Ironman. and so, so I learned a lot, learned a lot about myself.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(40:06)

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Was that so that was the 70.1 so you did the running and they handled the app. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (40:29)

Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, I did that. Yeah, the 70.3. Now my girls finished

 

like an hour and a half ahead of me because, know, well, you know, they might be a little younger than me and they might be a lot faster than I am.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(40:42)

I’ll say fitness is definitely still a big piece of my life. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the huge come up that that high rocks has been having in the States. I think it originated over in the UK or something like that. around the time, so it’s called it’s called high rocks. ⁓ It’s a it’s basically a it’s an interesting like kind of hybrid combination of CrossFit and then also a lot of cardio based activities.

 

Jeff Walter (40:56)

No, no, what is it again?

 

Okay, what was that?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(41:09)

They organize these giant races, like thousands of people are participating simultaneously. But it’s, it is funny if you start researching it, you know, just like when CrossFit started becoming a thing, you know, the powerlifters made fun of the CrossFitters, the CrossFitters made fun of the long distance runners and was this ever ending cycle. And it’s kind of happening with high rocks a little bit now too, but it’s, you’ve got burpee broad jumps, sled poles, wall balls, sled pushes. You’ve got the skier. And then you’ve also got Rose.

 

Jeff Walter (41:20)

Yeah.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(41:37)

And you have to do that for time and distance. And then in between each one of those segments, you also have several meters worth of running that you have to do. And so it’s this interesting combination of, you you’ve got your endurance based athletes, but then you’ve also got your strength based athletes and it’s meshed into one. And nothing has kicked my ass as much as these darn high rocks workouts. I tell you what, but it’s been good.

 

Jeff Walter (42:01)

Is that HI rocks or when you say high rocks, HI?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(42:04)

H-Y-R-O-X. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (42:07)

H Y R O X high rocks.

 

That’s it. That’s interesting. My, uh, my cousin, uh, year, uh, a number of years ago, he started, um, a civilian military combine, which was a, uh, uh, it was over in New York and the Northeast, but it was, you know, kind of, kind of a cross fit thing, but similar type of concept. The words you’re saying, like they, took the, uh, military, um, fitness training, you know, the, the burpees and the mud swim or the mud crawl and,

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(42:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (42:34)

all these different things and they laid them out in a, I think it was a 10 K course. And so you were then, but you did the combine first and then you went out on the running course and the running course though had a couple of, had the sled poles and you know, some obstacle, you know, a little obstacle course type of thing. And man, that, that, that was, that was rough. Yeah, I was running back then and I did that. was like,

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(42:39)

Mmm.

 

It’s a little brutal.

 

Jeff Walter (43:03)

Yeah, no scaling walls. That’s a, it’s like you get in your rhythm and then all of a sudden like, boom, you’re changing your muscle grip. It’s crazy. Yeah.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(43:05)

Yeah.

 

Well, and I, I know

 

I keep saying I’m a young guy, but I am starting to get to that period to where I’m not, you I’m not the youngest one out there anymore. And so these, these kids in college are just smoking me on these runs. And it’s a, it’s definitely a very, starting to feel it. I’m starting to feel the pain a little.

 

Jeff Walter (43:26)

Yeah. Well, you know, it’s, Hey, can you keep it up? You know, it’s a, it’s a great thing. And, um, I’m going to have to check that out. Cause that sounds like a lot of Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I find that with all, with all the endurance stuff, you know, whether it’s the CrossFit or the, running or the biking, you know, the community is just fantastic. Like a bunch of like great people, just really good people. So, all right. So you, you are learning how to become an expert high rocks athlete.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(43:33)

It is a lot of fun. Good, good community based based workout too.

 

Yeah, yeah. And every.

 

I’m trying my best. Yeah. We’ll see how it shakes out. Besides that, do, ⁓ I really enjoy doing autocross. So if you ever, ever make it out into Boise, you can, you can ride along with me.

 

Jeff Walter (43:57)

Yeah, that’s it. Very cool.

 

Oh, okay. Mental note there. That’s something I’ve never done. That’d be a lot of That’d be a lot of So, and so if I ever get out there, that’d be really good. So I appreciate the offer. Anything else you want to cover while we’re chatting? Patrick?

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(44:13)

Yeah, ton of fun.

 

No, this

 

has been a lot of fun and I feel like I was doing a lot of the talking so I apologize.

 

Jeff Walter (44:31)

No,

 

no, no, no, no. Hey, I can’t be learning if I’m talking.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(44:35)

Well, that’s how I feel as well. So, I

 

appreciate you having me on. This was a ton of fun. So hopefully, hopefully we can connect again in the future.

 

Jeff Walter (44:43)

I’d like that. That’d be great. And I have an open invitation to go to Boise. So that’s good. I heard it’s a beautiful city. all right. So we’re wrapped up. Patrick, thank you so much for your time. Really enjoyed it. It was great talking to you. You’re a fun guy to talk to. And Franchise Fastlane, it sounds like they’re doing really cool things and bringing those franchisees and franchisors together and looking for that good fit.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(44:48)

Yep, that’s right.

 

Jeff Walter (45:08)

And I got a lot out of this because, again, we’re as a firm, we’re focused more on the training and helping franchise or put those training programs out there and all that type of stuff. That’s, that’s what we do for a living. Um, but you know, it’s, it’s gotta serve a higher purpose and a higher purpose, I think is what you’ve been laying out is what makes for a good, what makes for a good franchise or, um, and what makes for a good franchisee franchise or fit. And then.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(45:36)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (45:38)

The training, like every other process out there is supports that basic thing. Right. So, so it, it, was educational for me. This is my primary market research as well. that I get to take back to my day job of, you know, being a software company and see how we’re going to help our clients, ⁓ train their, their franchise or ease. And so I appreciate all those insights to really do. so thank you for your time and your insights. really appreciate it.

 

Patrick Sanchez of Franchise Fastlane(46:04)

Yeah. Thank you.

 

Jeff Walter (46:06)

And for everybody out there, thank you so much for listening. We appreciate your support. Have a great day.