Thryv:

Jeff Walter (00:05)

You know, just get it going and then you’ll see that little purple thing pop up in the top in a second or two. And then once that starts, well, you know, there it is says uploading and, we’re ready to go. All right. We’ll go in three, two.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (00:17)

Ready,

 

Jeff Walter (00:20)

Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast. My guest today is Matthew Gorge. Matthew is the Director of Enterprise Sales for Thrive, leading the growth of the company’s enterprise and franchise division across North America. He also started Thrive’s 501c3 Small Business Foundation in 2018, which supports small businesses across the US and has led the organization for three years. Matthew, welcome to the podcast.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (00:46)

Hey, Jeff, thanks for having me on and giving Thrive some time here. So good to see you.

 

Jeff Walter (00:52)

It’s good to see you. And, and, we were having some fun, chatting just before, my, my listeners know this first thing I like to do is say, Hey, how did you end up, at thrive and in the position you’re in now and give us, give us a little bit of that journey.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (01:03)

Yeah. I,

 

sure, sure. So I’ve been with Thrive for 10 years. joined in 2015. Before then I was at a marketing company called Hiboo where I was there for a few years. And, out of college, I did my marketing internship for a Gold’s Gym franchisee, a franchisee that had three locations, pretty much doing everything for this guy. transitioned from that to a role at Hiboo. Hiboo was in the building of one of our, gym locations.

 

And then, you know, worked at Hiboo for a few years before Joni thrive 10 years ago.

 

Jeff Walter (01:35)

And so, for the listeners out there, what does Thrive do? What does Thrive?

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (01:39)

So Thrive really exists to simplify the life of small businesses. So we have hundreds of thousands of small business clients across a few countries, working with local independent businesses, but also franchises. That’s the division of the company that I manage, which is the franchise division. And Thrive, our platform, our software, really helps you standardize your marketing, sales, communications, payments into one easy to use platform.

 

Jeff Walter (01:55)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (02:07)

So, you know, hopefully to help you grow faster and easier and just making it easier for the small business owner in their day to day.

 

Jeff Walter (02:14)

And then you said you started a foundation. that’s up. I’m a big believer in a free market, as everybody out there knows. Tell me about the foundation, because that sounds pretty interesting.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (02:24)

Yeah, the Thrive Small Business Foundation, we started in 2018. It’s a 501C3 and it’s just our way. You know, we have hundreds of thousands of customers all over the country and it exists to empower, develop and invest in small businesses. that part or that organization really focuses on working with like the Small Business Administration, the Small Business Development Centers across the country. We have a few hundred sales reps at Thrive and they’ll donate their time to the foundation to go out.

 

and do educational appearances at Chambers of Commerce, local SBDC offices. We do a lot of online learning. We’ll do some in-kind donating of our actual software at the company to select businesses throughout the country. And then we actually do grants. We have grants that we will award from time to time at the foundation. We’ve done a lot of different works, but we did a lot of work during COVID.

 

with different small business organizations. But yeah, really proud of that. I helped launch it and ran it for three years. And then now there’s a different leadership group that’s managing that, but really proud of that organization.

 

Jeff Walter (03:32)

That’s really cool. I, uh, folks don’t know this, but way back in the day, I, uh, I was one of, uh, an SBDC consultant. It was one of those guys that would come in and, and, it was so much fun. It was out when I was, uh, I was living out in Sacramento and, you know, uh, and I, I was doing my own thing on the side, but then every Thursday I’d go in to the SBDC and you know, they had that free consulting that people can sign up for.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (03:42)

Really? Okay. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (04:00)

And I was one of the consultants there on Thursdays and it is so cool. Well, that was one of the most fun, professional experiences I had. had all these folks, all these people that were either starting businesses or they’re in business or they wanted to make a right turn or doing, and it’s just, they had so many amazing ideas and they were like, help me understand what I need to do next. So it’s so cool that you guys are.

 

involved in that. anyway, just I love that.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (04:28)

Yeah, I’ve been working with

 

that group for many years. It’s one of the things I don’t think our government or the SPC organization does a good enough job letting people know that it’s out there. They have about thousand offices all spread out throughout the country. It’s free. Our tax dollars pay for it. You can go in there and get consulting. You were doing that every Thursday and there’s consultants all over the country. That’s what I saying, Jeff. Our foundation plus our company,

 

Jeff Walter (04:45)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (04:58)

our for-profit side of the company, work directly with the SBDC to help entrepreneurs and you’ll kind of get going. People could go to that organization to sell their business too. But that’s what we’re doing with them.

 

Jeff Walter (05:08)

Very cool. Now, you know, we had talked a while ago and what I thought was really interesting, know, one of the, um, one of the things we talk a lot here is, is channel enablement channel, partner enablement. How do you build those, those, uh, sales and service channels? Right. And in franchising, you know, that, you know, you got the franchise or, and that’s, that’s all about, that’s what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to build that network, right? You’re trying to build that franchise network and, uh,

 

You know, scaling that is really difficult. You know, like I’d say from the experiences I’ve had, you’ve got a lot of really, really great founders. They’ve come up with some concept. and they, they, they, open up a location and they’re doing well and they open up a couple other locations and they’re doing well. And then they decide to get into franchising and they get a couple of true believers, you know, to be frank, the first couple of franchisees.

 

And, things are going well. And then it’s almost like they hit a wall as an emerging franchise or because everything is coming out of the founder’s head or, or a handful of it’s all, it almost gets constrained. And so one of things we talk about is how do you scale that? And, and, and, and just, what are your thoughts, immediate thoughts there, you know, in terms of how.

 

How do you go beyond that handful of true believers, corporate stores and true believers? How have you seen folks scale that? And what’s good approach?

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (06:36)

Yeah. I think you’d back up and you think, okay, most small businesses in America fail. You know, if you really look at this, we were just talking about the SBDC, which is part of the SBA, the SBAS statistics that show, you know, I 20 % in the first couple of years, 50 % in five and 80 % fail within 10 years. So those emerging or startup franchisors are like the all-stars of small business. You know, they’ve figured out a way to…

 

Jeff Walter (06:42)

Right.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (07:02)

to create a successful, thriving small business. And now they’re wanting to take that to other people, their system to other people. And the first few franchisees they pick up are almost as crazy as they are. They’re willing to deal with some of the ambiguity of systems and just trying to figure it out on their own. And I just think the larger the brand gets, the more that in order to scale it, you’re not…

 

you know, picking up those kinds of small business owners along the way, you really need to build a system that the average kind of entrepreneur with an average skill set, average tech skill set can come in and operate your brand. And so you, I think eventually have to morph into this franchise that has the systems in order to do that. And so that’s what I, you know, I think that when you see brands plateau, it’s because they really don’t have a turnkey process.

 

They don’t train to that process and they don’t iterate on that process in a way that allows people from all different kinds of skill sets to flock to the brand.

 

Jeff Walter (07:57)

Mm-hmm.

 

And so if you were one of those emerging franchisors, and it doesn’t have to be just confined to the franchise system. You could also be somebody that was looking for resellers or authorized service providers or there’s a bunch of different network models. I think most folks, it’s easier to get their arms around the franchise system, especially because the partner is your brand. Right. But if you were one of those, like what

 

Where do you start? Like what is it? What processes are you talking about and which ones would you start with first? Yeah, you know I’m saying like

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (08:39)

Yeah.

 

So I think, you know, when you’re talking about what should I do as a franchise or that’s really tough because, you know, there’s not a lot of other franchise ors in your local community. You know, if you, you’re a franchise or that’s operating a business in Charlotte, you just franchise the company and you want to, now take on, you either study online what’s happening or you, you may have some people in your local community that are also franchise ors, but I think starting out.

 

you know, maybe join like the IFA, the International Franchise Association. They have a lot of good mentorship programs. Go to some franchise events where you’ll meet other people that have, you know, kind of walk that path. So, you know, kind of what to do. But then when you actually look at what to do as a franchisor and some of the things that you should, you know, system ties or make turnkey, a lot of it, like with us, is the technology that’s being used at the franchise location and how you’re marketing the business, how you’re running the business.

 

And the idea of franchising is I don’t have to go and create that myself. It’s the reason I’m joining your brand. And so the tech needs to be lined up. A great training process of how to get the franchisee going needs to be lined up. And that’s where we come in. That’s where Thrive really can help a franchise brand.

 

Jeff Walter (09:57)

So, so, I hear you saying one of the things, you know, there’s a couple, always a couple of things going on, but you’re, trying to find new franchisees and that’s a whole process onto its own, right? So we’re not talking about that part of the equation. It’s like, once they come, once they say, yes, I’m interested and they come on board, it’s those processes that we’re really focusing on here. And the first one I heard you talk, say is marketing. So.

 

In your eyes, what does a marketing process mean? Like, what does it mean? Like, you know, you got the right person, right? Like you got the right franchisee, you’ve done the match, they’ve hired the right people. You know, so to me, it’s always people, process and technology. And so you got the people, you got the person and their team. And we’re talking about marketing processes, but what does that actually, what does that mean to you?

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (10:40)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (10:51)

you know, cause marketing is one of those terms that’s like, think cover a million different things, but you know, as, as an emerging franchise or what does that, what is a repeatable marketing process mean? Which then you use a tech, you know, technology, you’ll like a thrive to kind of, you know, execute the process, but, but bring it down, you know, ⁓ help me understand what you mean by, by, marketing.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (10:56)

Yeah.

 

Simple terms.

 

Yeah. So I think in the simplest form, it would mean that, you know, the franchise or paid the dummy tax and has figured out what to do at the local level to get customers, convert customers, get them to, you know, be repeat customers and to help you sustain and scale. So, you know, from, from a marketing standpoint, if you start, you know, whether you want to call it a funnel or customer life cycle, ⁓ they know, you know, from the beginning, from the top of the funnel to the bottom of funnel.

 

Jeff Walter (11:42)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (11:47)

what to do, how to do it, and then what tools to use and what vendor that the brand would be working with in order to do that. And so the whole idea, if I’m a potential franchisee, the reason I don’t go out and start my own business from scratch is that the franchise or has the blueprint or the recipe in order to do that has figured out a good chunk of what to do at the location level, that it’s turnkey that I just step in day one.

 

I follow their blueprint, you know, and it should produce a profitable business, you know, with some really good unit economics. But I think from a marketing standpoint, you have it covered during the entire customer lifecycle.

 

Jeff Walter (12:26)

So, if I was going to use a platform like Thrive, if I understand correctly, Thrive will help you automate that marketing, automate the sales. And I think the other, the communications to the customer. And I think the other thing you said was payments, payment processing, right? I think that’s…

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (12:43)

Yeah, it’s

 

a little bit of that and more. So if you look at, know, just so that if those that watch this understand what we do, like, you know, the actual features of our software and the tools that we have, it, know, years and years, you know, let’s say 20, 30 years ago, it was much simpler to market as a small business owner than it is now. You know, lot, a lot simpler to advertise. People found you in a smaller number of platforms versus what they do now.

 

Jeff Walter (12:46)

Yeah.

 

Okay.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (13:12)

And so if you start to think about all the different ways that a small business owner needs to manage their online presence, you know, manage their customer, uh, like our tools allow you to manage online listings, uh, know, your Google profile, you know, starting at the very top of the funnel. Um, we, we are, our platform helps you manage reviews, both get them and then respond to online reviews. Um, things like you’re, you know, there are certain vendors and franchising that help you from a

 

an ad ads management standpoint, we will also do that. So when you start to think of Google ads, search engine optimization, social media ads, we can, help with that. And then, you know, just lead capture tools, form fills, different things like that. And then once you capture that leading on top of the funnel, get the lead, then it also then goes into our software, which is a full on, you know, CRM with like what you said.

 

which has an automation builder where depending on what type of lead that comes in, we have certain automation that’s customized to our franchise brands. We call it when and then when this happens, then this happens to help the franchisee convert that lead. then, know, how, you become a customer, once you become a customer, there’s certain marketing aspects to getting you to become a repeat customer that’s baked into our tool. And so

 

Jeff Walter (14:23)

Okay.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (14:35)

In franchising, there are marketing vendors for a lot of that. Like the issue with a lot of brands is that they have everything that I just said chopped up in four, five, six different vendors and vendor bloat is the term. And so we’re just helping consolidate that down into one company and it’s working really well.

 

Jeff Walter (14:47)

Right.

 

Okay. So, so if I’m putting my, my, my franchise or my founder hat on, and I’m looking at the marketing just to see if I got this right. I, I, I’m gonna need technology so I can scale this and I can bring somebody else on, but the process, you know, once I figure out and I know kind of what works because I got it to work, right. I got it at the, at my corporate stores, but I’m probably doing things very manually intensive.

 

And, it’s not a pro and I could teach somebody the process, but without having the right tech in place, it’s, they’re not going to necessarily do it in a repeatable fashion. Right. And, and, if I understand on the marketing side, it’s like, okay, number one, there’s your online presence. Once you know, like when somebody looks for whatever it is you’re doing, whether it’s say a roofing company or dumpster company or quick service restaurant or something, you know, somebody searches for that.

 

thing and up you pop. and so there’s, there’s that, what does it say about you? And then there’s what is Google and Microsoft and Yahoo and all the other search engines say about you that they have your right address. Do they have your right phone number? Do you have right hours? they, know, the, the, the, the, you know, when we’re talking about marketing, it’s like, you got to get that and make sure that looks good to have a process to make sure that stays up to date and accurate and correct.

 

Then there, think the other thing you said is then there’s online advertising, right? Advertising across all different types of platforms, all the social media platforms and the search platforms, basically, with Google AdWords being the, you know, the 900 power gorilla out there, right? Um, but, but then, and then also industry specific platforms, directories and things like that. So, so you gotta have a process for that first thing.

 

What’s your, what does your presence look like? Is it accurate and correct? How does it get updated? When you change your store hours, what do you got to do so that the internet knows that you’re now open to 9pm? Right. You know, especially here we are on the holiday seasons. A lot of, a lot of stores, a lot of locations are staying open later. And when somebody, when somebody checks you out, you want them to see that you’re open to nine o’clock tonight, not six o’clock like you are during, during non-holiday season, right? That type of thing.

 

And then the, and then there’s the, the ad spend, right. And managing all that. And so you got to, so if, I get what you’re saying is like as a franchise or you got to think what system, what process should my local store in Des Moines be doing from a spend, you know, from a present standpoint, from a spend standpoint. And then the other big thing you mentioned were reviews.

 

Right. Cause you know, the reviews are seeing are not over that store, not of, you know, the 5,000 other reviews. Right. And so imagine that, and would you say that’s kind of like a, is that kind of like a marketing and a starter kit for a franchise or those three main components or would, know, and before we get into the sales side of things, because

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (17:55)

Yeah. Yeah, no, think

 

when you, when you think of it as top of the funnel or getting the lead, you know, that’s a good way to put it. You know, I mean, your franchisees in order to have great unit economics, they need customers and especially when they’re starting out, you know, and so, you know, getting them customers or, you know, them getting themselves customers, is really important. So you gotta have the top of the funnel nailed. Otherwise, why, why would they go with your brand? You know, like,

 

Jeff Walter (18:02)

Yeah.

 

Right.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (18:22)

because they could go struggle on their own. So that is what you just described is really that top of the funnel piece, which is getting the lead. then you can, it’s, know, and when you work with us, sometimes that’s all we’re working with you on because there’s other tools that you’re using once you get the lead. But if you want to work with us after you get the lead on converting the lead, working the lead, you know, remarketing to that customer, you can.

 

Jeff Walter (18:45)

Okay. And then, and then the next, next, the next process that you’re talking about the bottom of the funnel, the, you got the lead and now it’s the conversion. And that’s where you typically bring in a CRM, but a CRM that allows you to, to, Divvy things up amongst each of the franchisees with it, with, with, but then I’m assuming it’s also configured with all, like, again, the things you want to think about are how can you automate this stuff? So you’re not leaving it up to the discretion of the new franchisee.

 

Right? Like, like, Hey, when we get this type of lead, what works really well for us is send a series of three emails that look like this, followed up by a phone call, followed up by another two emails that look like that. Followed up by a, you know, a last ditch phone call and the last ditch email or whatever the pace is for your business.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (19:14)

Exactly.

 

Jeff Walter (19:36)

And then that’s to engage, get them from a lead to actually talking to you. And then at some point they’re going to want like a proposal or pricing or, what do I do next or how do I configure it? Like, so is, is that the type of processes you’re thinking of on the lead conversion, the sales, what I would just call sales or what are your thoughts?

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (19:56)

Yeah, a hundred percent.

 

you you get a lead and then it’s, you know, what goes into converting that lead? Well, you you, every brand’s a little different. They, you you look at the age range or the type of consumers that they have. They, you know, a lot of great brands have that segmented into buckets or into personas, however you will. And then you’re, you you might have custom marketing for each persona or each situation in order to convert that. have really, I think great pipeline tool.

 

Jeff Walter (20:11)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (20:23)

where you can customize it for the brand based on this type of lead and where they are in the, you know, in the sales cycle. Sometimes you have a quick sales cycle. Sometimes it’s a little bit longer, you know, maybe if you’re a home remodeler or if you have a high ticket item, you know, there’s a whole sales process. And so we have custom and segmented marketing that you can cut, you know, set up in the brand that what’s what we’ve worked with franchisees or is on is really doing that at scale across all the locations. that when the franchisees open up,

 

Jeff Walter (20:47)

Right.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (20:50)

you know, everyone’s account or everyone’s thrive, if you will, is customized, but it’s the exact same across all the locations. So the consumer in Des Moines or the consumer in Nashville or Ann Arbor is getting pretty much the same experience across the board. That way you can train at scale, market at scale. so yeah, you know, getting the leads really important, but then once you get it, you know, converting it and then, you know, once they become a customer, depending your type of business model,

 

You know, what kind of marketing do you have set up to make them a repeat customer to make them maybe use you twice a year or next summer when they need another thing or service to use you again. So that’s what we are working on. you know, and you’re, think as a franchise or you need to have that figured out, you know, so the franchisee steps into a system and, know, a lot of, like you were talking about a startup or, you know, a franchise or that’s been really successful in a local market.

 

You know, the difference I see too is, you know, let’s say you had this small business that you ran for 10 years, made it super successful and you franchised it in 2022. And now here it is 2025, 2026, and you’ve got 15, 25 locations. Well, you know, three to four years have passed since, you you started franchising the brand and marketing and all these technologies, all these platforms you just mentioned are constantly changing. So I think, you know, working with a company like Thrive that stays up to

 

Jeff Walter (21:55)

Right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (22:15)

what’s happening from a modern standpoint, you can really be beneficial because otherwise it’s just on you and your corporate team to really figure out what’s going on, when things are changing, how to prep for that. And that’s what we work with our brands on.

 

Jeff Walter (22:28)

Yeah. So, so, so I think that gives a, I think gives me a good sense of what, what, cause I, you know, I hear the, the buzzwords a lot, like, well, you got to, you know, you know, you got to define your processes and, and, know, marketing and sales and delivery. but I think a lot of people struggle with, what does that actually mean? What am I actually doing? I think, I think we got a good sense of that from the market, you know, the top, the marketing or the top of the funnel where you’re.

 

Building awareness and getting people to know what you do and, you know, either through ads or search engine optimization, or now you’ve got, you know, AI optimization. but getting them to find you because they, are whatever, whatever it is you’re doing. and then it sounds like we’ve got a good sense on the, okay, now you know what the steps take to take that lead and turn them into a customer.

 

And, know, it could be a very simple thing or it can be a very complex thing. It depends exactly what you’re doing. Like you said, like home remodeling. It’s all, you know, you’re, you’re putting bids together and sending them out, right? Quick service restaurant. The second they walk in or make a reservation. Um, but you have to have the revisions. It’s like, have to that technology, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s, part, it’s a process, right? And then it’s a scalable process. Um,

 

And you have to know that, I’m making a reservation at the Ann Arbor location, not the Detroit location. Right. But that’s, and it sounds silly because to a certain degree to us as consumers, we’re like, well, of course I’ve done that a million times. But now when you put the hat on of the person that has to put all that in place, it’s easy to forget that.

 

And then, and then it’s interesting because you brought up something that I haven’t heard a lot of people talk about that ongoing communication, that remarketing, that, that, that tickler that, that makes them repeat customers. So from a process standpoint, like what type of processes really work well there? Like what does a, what do those processes look like in your, what you’ve seen?

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (24:36)

think it really just depends on the brand you’re working with and the type of business, the type of consumer. For instance, you had mentioned quick service restaurants like PF Chang’s is one of our customers. We also work with lot of home services, a lot of ⁓ contractors, and it’s just different. It’s just different depending on the brand. I think after someone becomes a customer, however they become, having a game plan of

 

Jeff Walter (24:50)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (25:00)

How do you remarket to them? How do you stay in front of them? Because it’s so much easier to get them to spend more versus trying to find a brand new customer out in your market. so just having that customized, that’s one of the things, like when Thrive is working with a franchise, we are working with the home office normally, the VP of Marketing, the CMO, and their team on what does that look like at the location level? And ideally, what would happen when a…

 

Jeff Walter (25:08)

Right, right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (25:28)

a customer becomes a customer, then what happens? And then after 30 days, 90 days, 120 days a year, what do you want going out and happening? And we can through our automation builder build that for the brand, standardize it across all their locations. And so when a franchisee gets a customer, there’s less guesswork. They don’t have to wonder when should I?

 

Jeff Walter (25:31)

Right.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (25:50)

you know, call Jeff back. When should I send an email back to Jeff? Like our system just takes care of that for them. The way the CMO looking top down understands that they should and he or she could facilitate that through all their locations. So that’s really it. It’s really taking the guesswork out after they become a client and you do that through our technology.

 

Jeff Walter (26:11)

All right. And so, so, so that remarketing process is really a communicate. If I hear you, it’s, it’s really your communication strategy and it can be different for different brands because you everyone, you know, but it’s, it’s a communication strategy out to the customer. And I think I like the way you put it. It’s like, what do you want to tell them 30 days after they’re a customer? What do you want to tell them? 60, 90, 180, 365. Right. And I think of you.

 

It’s it. I like the way you said that because if you put that hat on, makes it, it takes the consultant ease, right? That, that, that general stuff and it really brings it down to the ground, right? Like, well, 60 days, I want to tell them this, or if I’m in an annual cyclical business, every November, I want to tell them that it’s like, if you bring it down to that 30, 60, 90, I think that’s a really good way of looking at it. And then I think it really, you know, it really makes it.

 

tactile and tangible to the folks. really, I like that. That was cool.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (27:13)

Yeah.

 

And it’s just, it’s just so much more expensive. You know, when you’re running Google campaigns or you’re running social media ad campaigns and you’re trying to find these customers that have never been a customer with you before, become a customer, your customer acquisition costs are so much higher. And then once you, know, if Jeff, if you’re my customer and maybe we did a job for you in June of this summer, you know, it’s, it’s just simply less expensive for us to keep remarketing back to you to one, either get you to refer us some to someone else.

 

or to get you to come back and purchase another additional service or whatever it might be. And so that’s what we really sit down with the CMO of the brand, VP of marketing of the brand and the operations team of the brand and say, okay, when this happens, what do you want then to happen? And then we automate that in the software.

 

Jeff Walter (28:00)

All right. And so it seems to me, if again, if I’m that emerging franchise or, I want to scale without sacrificing quality. And I also want to scale without having to work 120 hours a week. because, know, which can only get me so far. You know, just kind of starting to, summarize what I think we’ve, you know, we’ve had a good conversation. You know, if you were that franchise or you’d start.

 

I guess implied in what we were talking about is, well, you probably already got pretty good processes on the, the do the, the, the, the, the delivering the service, right? Like usually that’s where the, lot of Frank founders and franchise, that’s where they live. Like what are the dishes I’m going to make? how do I do roofing? Like how, you know, how do I do the service or the product? Right.

 

And usually it’s the other elements of the business, the sale, the marketing, the sales, the finance. That’s where they, you know, it’s not necessarily second nature. So if I hear what you’re saying is.

 

when we’re looking at scaling a franchise network, let’s start at the top and go, well, how do I get people, I just landed a new franchise in this new geography. How do I get the consumers to understand it? That’s the top. Make sure I have strong processes to convert them to customers. Make sure I have strong processes that are repeatable, scalable and proven and therefore not necessarily open to the discrepant.

 

to the discretion of the franchisee because that’s the automated system that they’re looking for, right? That’s the plugin of how do I remarket to them or how do I get them to come back and buy more? And if we start from there, those would be kind of, is it safe to say that’s where I would start or where you would suggest we start?

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (29:50)

Yeah. You know, I just think, you know, in my experience over the years working with franchises, they’re, you know, spend maybe a little bit too much on the, why and the brand and the culture and whatnot, and not enough on the, how and the what, because the brands that really kill it, of course they have great culture and they have great company values on their website and whatnot, but their franchisees and the franchisees employees know how and what.

 

you know, how to run the brand, what to do in certain situations. And they’re trained properly. You know, if you really spend a lot of time with Chick-fil-A pops to my head, if you go spend some time with a Chick-fil-A franchisee, you know, they’re trained really well. mean, yes, they say my pleasure and yes, they’re really friendly. Yes, they have a great culture. But if you’ve been into that chicken sandwich and it tasted terrible, or, you know, if you went to the car, the drive-through line and it took 45 minutes, you wouldn’t go back. And so their entire process of how they operate and how they market,

 

It’s a science. And so you’ve really got to develop that as a franchise or in 2025. Otherwise, why would I not just go start my own company and figure it out on my own?

 

Jeff Walter (30:49)

Yeah.

 

Right.

 

Yeah. Well, and, it, when I, and I, and it, to me, it does tie back to the training because I think he got it to find those processes. explored the customer acquisition side of things today. What does that look like when it gets to the ground? And, and then you have to define those pretty detailed. And then if you want it to be scalable, you have to have a platform.

 

It allows you to express that and then scale it to 10, 50, a hundred franchisees where you, you as the founder are not necessarily don’t know specifically what that person is not keeping. You’re not able to actually know the guy or the gal in, in, you know, Sacramento and, and they’re doing it right. Because I talked to them every other week. Right. Like, and that’s where you need the technology. You need this.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (31:43)

Right.

 

Jeff Walter (31:49)

the tech stack in place to make it repeatable and scalable.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (31:52)

Heck,

 

vendors like you, Jeff, vendors like your company, vendors like mine. mean, the thing about franchising that I had to learn, this is what really shocked me the most when I started working with franchises was just how lean and mean the corporate teams were. And so, a lot of them don’t have a background in training franchisees and training employees. And so I think leveraging folks like you or

 

Jeff Walter (32:08)

Right.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (32:20)

your relationship with tech companies like us in order to standardize things to eliminate guesswork and make it more repeatable. That’s a big decision for the franchisor, like your vendors and the tech you’re going to have. And that can really make or break your brand.

 

Jeff Walter (32:36)

Yeah, I think that’s a great way to summarize it up. Any other words of wisdom you’d like to impart on everybody? And if somebody wanted to get a hold of you or thrive, how would they get a hold of you?

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (32:51)

So can go to Thrive, we spell Thrive, THRYV.com. There’s a franchise page on our website. You can find our team that way. You can also look me up. I’m very active on LinkedIn, very involved with the International Franchise Association. on the supplier forum board and very active in that space. And I think, you know, if I’m an emerging brand and I’m watching this podcast or, you if I’m a franchisor, the piece of wisdom would be go find other folks. You know, if you’re at

 

eight locations, you want to be at 100, go to a conference, seek out people that have already gotten to 100 and ask them how they did it. And the franchise space is really good about that. Folks that have been there before training you, or at least imparting some wisdom on how to do it. So that would be my piece of advice is go find someone that’s been down the path you want to go and try to learn from them.

 

Jeff Walter (33:43)

I think that’s great wisdom and everybody now knows how to get a hold of you and thrive. And my guest today has been Matthew Gourget. And Matthew, thank you for being here.

 

Matthew Gourgeot of Thryv (33:55)

Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate it.

 

Jeff Walter (33:57)

And to everybody out there, thanks for listening and we’ll catch you around.