Building a Strong Franchise Brand
In this episode, listen in as our guest Sean Knox shares his magic formula on how to build a successful franchise business. As the COO of Urban Bricks, he crafted a brand standard with an emphasis on authentic hospitality and unique vibe. Sean also believes the importance of marketing by involving the local community which is a big hit with the franchise owners and loyal customers as well.
Thank you for listening,
Zahra Cruzan
Founder, The Brand Collaborative And Brand Author
The Brand Collaborative Brand Author
Zahra
So thank you so much, Sean, for meeting me today and talking to me about what you do. I think when I met you, it was at a franchising convention. And I was instantly struck by your knowledge of the industry, your knowledge of the fields, and just the amount of support that Urban Bricks gives to their franchisees, I felt like that was very unique because you understood the pain points of where they're coming from, and the obstacles that they were gonna have to overcome. And you were really vested in setting them up for success and how they could represent the brand that you guys have so carefully crafted and doing it to a tee and so that's why I was just dying to get you on the show. You guys are really lucky to have him here. It's incredible.
Sean
We have a long conversation we talk for like an hour.
Zahra
Yeah, we did. Like full closure we've been, I told him it was here, he was here for a podcast, and I trapped him into a conversation for two hours before we even did this conversation. It was it was a ton of fun. So for those of you guys who don't know, this is Sean Knox, he is the COO of Urban Bricks. And so today, we're just going to talk to him a little bit about some of the points that are relevant to us as people who are aspiring franchisee creators, or franchisee owners. And so I kind of wanted to talk to you a little bit about the branding process from a franchise. And then also, it would be super awesome if you could help people vet themselves right. So there are some people who are listening to this that are thinking, do I want to make my own brand? Or do I want to just get a brand and all buy a franchise it's already done for me? And then how did that which are the brands to choose you know, how do you know? Should I do a subway or Taco Bell or an Urban Bricks or how do I make those choices? And how do I know how can I read between the lines to see what's a good investment and what's maybe not such a good investment.
Sean
Sure.
Zahra
Yeah. Awesome.
Sean
Absolutely. Let's dive in.
Zahra
All right, let's do it. So I know you've been working in the restaurant business for over 10 years. So tell me about how you got to be the COO of Urban Bricks how does that happen?
Sean
It's actually kind of a crazy story. You know, I worked with Jimmy John's for a long time. A couple of my friends we opened up a Jimmy John's here in San Antonio. We ended up expanding to four in two years. So we're doing very, very well and one day, I'm at one of the stores and this lady walks in and she's looking for a job for me at Jimmy John's I was hiring drivers all the time. Like I would have probably 10 to 12 drivers for lunch so quite a few, right. That's how busy we were for lunch. So I was always hiring drivers so and I would hire people on the spot pretty much. So I ended up hiring her long story short, she worked for about three weeks with us, she was doing delivery. And then I also put her on our sampling program, which is something that I care a lot about, and I transfer it over to Urban Bricks as well, which basically every morning we make samples and we go out to the community, and we hand them out, right. She had a great personality, you know, very personable, so she was perfect for this. And I asked her are you interested in doing this a couple more hours a morning, pay a little bit more and it's fun. You're giving free food so we had been open for probably about six months at that point. So we had already gone through all the businesses a few times so at this point, when we walk into business, people are cheering, Jimmy John's here. We got lunch for free so she loved it. She worked for us, like I said for about three weeks and then she got into a car wreck and basically she quit at that point, right? Fast forward a couple of weeks, I ended up getting a call for a job and I had some people come into the restaurant that were aggressively going after me, right. I wasn't paying much attention, I was happy where I was at we're growing very rapidly right. We had just bought out another Jimmie John's Carville so we were I wasn't looking at going anywhere, to be honest with you. But they were very aggressive so I had maybe four or five people over a couple of weeks call come into my store, tried to sit me down and talk to me. Eventually I broke right. I said fine. I'll let's set up a meeting let me hear what you have to say. So we ended up having a couple of meetings with Sammy, which is the COO of Urban Bricks. And it ended up being his wife do at the time, you know, Sammy wanted to look at delivery a little bit harder at the time, but we couldn't do it in a pizza place right? So he wanted to just figure it out right so hey, go work at Jimmie Johnson, what are they doing? So that's actually how I ended in Urban Bicks. So basically, she told Sammy, you have to hire this guy if you want to be successful with delivery, and launched this the right way you need to get this guy so after three or four meetings, I joined the team and my specialty and background being marketing and delivery. Those are my passion so I came onto the team. I tripled our sales on delivery the first three months I was there. So that kind of launched me into the next position that I was in which was Director of Operations happened pretty quickly and I'm very competitive as well. So I dug in right away and I wanted to prove myself, right. So yeah, moved up to Director of Operations pretty quickly within that first year and then I started expanding going to all the locations, basically helping with the training program, the auditing, right of all the stores. Those were big things that I did and just implementing delivery, which, looking back on it now COVID happening thing, thank goodness, we had all those things together. Before all this happened, which made us okay, during COVID, right our sales went up in a lot of stores, which we're very blessed. And lucky to have that right not everybody's some of our friends that are in the business weren't so lucky so that's how it started. It was kind of a weird story. I had no plans on it but I love the concept. I love Sammy, he's a very smart guy been in the industry for a long time mean, and just clicked right away. And, you know, it's, that's pretty much what happened and we just started growing together. And we grew more rapidly than we did each year before. And yeah, I guess I would say I'm here I am the COO now and just looking to keep expanding, you know, we just opened our new San Antonio store our fourth location here just a month ago. So I've been spending a lot of time at that store, grassroots marketing and things like that, I'm sure we'll probably get into some of that and then opening Puerto Rico number two in about 60 days. So we're very excited about that we're doing tremendous on the island, and also expanding internationally into Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are coming up in this next quarter, as well. So lots of lots of fun, lots of activity going, we work really hard and we're really proud of our brand. You know, we started in 2015 so I came on just a little bit under a year from when he started. So I would say I've pretty much been there the whole way and built the whole brand from day one, pretty much and it's just it's just, we're just so blessed, to be able to, you know, give people opportunities to own their own business, right? Locally owned and operated is something that we'd love to push, right. I think small business and local own businesses is where it's at right now especially, you know, people want that local field, right. So we are a franchise, but we're not as big as McDonald's or anything like that so we still feel like it's a local field and the people that run our restaurants are local, they're there. They run the restaurants, so they know the community, they're, you know, they're a part of the community. So yeah, we're really proud, we're really proud of what we built znd we're really excited about where we're going here. So I'm excited to not just expand here in the States, but obviously, internationally we have a store in Panama as well. And then one in Puerto Rico so I don't know if you count Puerto Rico International, but I do I do. I have to get on the plane and fly over water. So it counts for me.
Zahra
So yeah, so before I forget, I just wanted to give a quick plug right, so the new store on Franco if you guys haven't been there and try to swing by give me some love. Yes, it's a beautiful store honestly food's great. So have it your way you can make deals with every pizza you want, which is fantastic. I love that idea, that concept right full control.
Sean
Absolutely.
Zahra
You know, for those of us OCD, people who know exactly how we like our pizza, we can do that. So that's really cool and yeah, so that was a tremendous jump. right? So to go from 2015 You know, where you opened to what over 35 and then you've got Panama City. How is that even possible so I did read an article that the Business Journal did and I know we've talked a little bit about Sammyy's background and how he what he started off as a franchisee. He learned that model, he got his construction team down, like he got his crew down, he got a systems down. And then armed with that kind of background experience he knew exactly you know what he was doing when he opened up. So do you think that that was part of what catapulted you guys so many in such a short amount of time, and the success rate you guys have had.
Sean
100% I think it's pivotal because with his background in franchising as a franchisee prior, he knew what he liked, and he knew what he didn't like. And that's the lessons that we took, or he took, I should say, to urban breaks. And I think that made a big difference, right? People franchising can be hard sometimes, right? You have, you know, big brother, looking over you sometimes right was some something so he we, you know, figured out some ways that we can make things easier, right? Nothing, or everything didn't have to be so corporate we didn't have to be Mr. A franchise or right, we really want it to be a team. And when you're starting small, I think that's key that you gotta get your key players to start. And then you know, everybody's a team like I said, this morning, I was at the store making pizzas and I'm the COO, right? I'm out there marketing we all feel the same way. We all feel the same passion for the brand and those are the people that we're looking to put on our team to match our ambition and our passion. So you know, Sammy is the same way he goes into stores. He makes pizzas. He goes in markets, you know, just to show that hey we're all the same, and we just all help each other out right. So, so yeah, I think that was a big thing with his background. It gave us a solid foundation to work on. And then he opened the first one here in San Antonio in 2015 got a great response, and everybody's started chattering Hey, how do I open one? How do I and that's kind of how it all started right. Slowly but surely, in now, you know, we have too many stores. Never, never, never.
Zahra
Never too many.
Sean
No, but it's been a great journey so far yeah.
Zahra
I think, you know, just kind of going back to what you were talking about, about him being that the ideal customer, right, so as a franchise as a franchisor, right, you've got the customers, the patrons, but then your customer who you're selling to, are these franchisees. And one of the things we talk about in branding is knowing your ideal client, knowing their demographics, but also knowing their psychographics what is their motivating behavior? What is driving their behavior, their action or non action and so when you were talking about you know, how Sammy was that franchisee he knows, he knew the gaps, he knew what made it harder to succeed as a franchisee he knew what made it less fun. What what were the barriers between him and success as franchisee of XY and Z. And I think that because you knew that and if you if you could talk speak to a little bit of that he was able to add in parts of your into your brand standards that made a different experience out of that. So I know like one of the things I was reading about is that you're not obligated to have one exact finish out model that you have an array to choose from. So everything's still on brand, that's how you balance, you know, you want to leverage the consistency of the brand new built, but you also want to give them some kind of the owners ownership, you know, have that creative freedom and get to do some of the fun things that you get to do when you're an entrepreneur, like make design decisions and things like that. And so giving them some of those options without letting it run amok, right they're not throwing purple in there, or something.
Sean
Yeah, you know, and I think it's important that the franchisee has a say in their investment right? And, you know, we're talking Starbucks earlier, right? A wealth admire Starbucks, right everybody does, they do a great job. So, you know, I like to consider Urban Bricks, very similar to a Starbucks, they all look and feel the same. But they're not exactly the same construction wise, right. But the feel, the energy is exactly the same in everyone, someone who might have wood, some of them might have granite, but it's always the same field, and you know exactly where you're at and that's how we wanted to do it right. And not be so strict on you know, you need this kind of tile, this kind of, you know, flooring, we want to give you three or four options and then we all discuss, like, once again, is the team, right? They actually have a say, and, you know, they can't go crazy and pick whatever they want. But they have a say they can they have some options to pick and choose and I think that also helps in building those relationships, right. And also getting people involved in the brand, like, Wow, it's so easy to work with these guys. And we have options, and I talked to this restaurant, and it was very straightforward, right. And we're also very hungry too so we will probably pay a little bit more attention than some of the bigger people would do, as well. So you know, it's important that they have a say, in their business and their investment and we take that really seriously. So yes, they, they're not all exactly the same, but they have the same feel and same energy. And it's always going to have our lime green color in there just to give that energy inside the store and, you know, our employees need to match that energy of the store. So, you know, going back to, you know, people that were looking for, that's one of the biggest things is high energy. Because if you can't go out and talk to people in your community, it's this isn't going to be the business for you right, it's very hands on very personable, we have to be involved in the community. So that's one of the biggest things is that you have to be able to do that. If you can't pull that off it's gonna be very tough.
Zahra
Yeah, I completely agree. And I love that analogy that you made, because whenever we talk brand standards, you know, with clients or small businesses, that's one of the more difficult things to explain is having a standard without having the rigidity, right so most creatives and entrepreneurs are afraid to be corporate to corporate right to in a box, but understanding that there are things that as patrons or customers they appreciate so having a line of consistency with things like flow and music absorbs sound absorption and there are some things that you can create a consistency with that will give a uniform vibe without necessarily having everything so over McDonald's, you know, we're it's just everything is just identical, right? So it's kind of the way that we explain it when we have a new client come in. As we say it doesn't have to be matchy matchy but it's kind of go like it's got it that's it's got to look right doesn't have to be you know, the same plaid print shirt with the identical plaid print. You know, you have polka dots, but we're cool. Getting like an outfit still, like it's all got to go. There's got to be and so a lot of those things are things that you visually and front burner notice. And some of them are subconscious or underlying things like, you don't notice. Oh, there's a lot of sound absorption in here. But you noticed the noise level so loud, raucous the place or is it more subdued and quiet? What's the music like? What's the temperature at? Is there a foyers or not? Do you walk right into the dining room? Is it you know, how is the flow set up? Where are you, you know, when you walk into a store, you intuitively know where to go. Like you walk in, even if you've never been into a store, you just kind of start moving in a direction, and you're being guided by the design and layout. And that's how, you know, you don't get somebody who opens the front doors, and then they are stuck at the front, like, where do I go? What do I do, right like this sense of overwhelm. And so I love that you guys can speak to that and help give a tangible cuz we've all been to an Urban Bricks, we've all felt that, you know, consistent vibe, and that I've been here before the hospitality that I intuitively know where to go. I'm not like, where do I go? Where's the cash register? Do you walk up an order? Or do they see you or even like this mass confusion, like it's very intuitive, you know exactly what to do when you get in, even though they all look a little different? And so like, how do you accomplish that that's a really cool thing to see. So if for nothing else, you guys gotta go in there and just experience what that looks feels like. So yeah, so talk to me a little bit about marketing and I'm not even going to ask you a specific question because you're the marketing genius, or you talk about whatever nuggets you want to give the world in marketing.
Sean
There's a lot of different ways we can go with this right. You know, we just had a conversation about social media, right? Google ads, grassroots marketing and I think my opinion and where we come from Urban Bricks is the most important marketing is got to come from the franchisee in their local community. This is, this must be done it's more I don't like to call it marketing as much as building relationships. Building relationships with the schools in your area, with the churches in your area with all the apartments because we definitely deliver, right. It's a big part of our business and apartments are huge for that, hospitals, banks, like everything that's in your community. Everybody needs to know your name, have your card, and know what your business provides right. Another thing is top of mind, right, following up with that. So we have a bunch of different ways that we target local marketing. Just this morning, we went out marketing for the Petrenko location, which was a lot of fun. We provided lunch for all the staff at the apartment complexes, and they just had a great time. We even you know, took it the extra mile and personalize some of the pizza boxes put their names.
Zahra
I saw that, the drawings, the pineapple. Yeah, so cool.
Sean
Yeah, so just those little touches, the grassroots, the local marketing, the face to face marketing is never not going to be number one. Yeah, it's the best thing to do and financial wise, it's the cheapest. All you need is some menus and a smile and you can get a lot of work done. And the best thing to give out is product, right that's what we have, I have pizza, I can give out pizzas all day long for my marketing. And for us, we can reimburse that every quarter up to 1% is what we do at Urban Bricks, because we encourage our franchisees to go out and market in their community. So if we give them that 1% to come back to them for reimbursement, they're going to feel much better about reinvesting in their business, right because they're getting it back as well, which not a lot of brands do that. So that's, that will, that would be my first thing I would say. And then I think everything else kind of follows after that obviously, social media is is huge nowadays, but I don't think it's as important now as it was 10 years ago. And things change very quickly so you definitely need to have a great Facebook, a great Instagram, but do we spend a ton of money on that? No, we don't think it's worth it. You get I mean, you definitely get something out of it but your ROI on that is it just doesn't make sense most of the time. But when you go up to somebody and hand them a free pizza that costs us pennies, right and they come in, they're a customer for life now, there's really no way around it. So you know, it's really being active in the community. If you're a part of your community, people will be more prone to order from you, especially a smaller brand like Urban Bricks compared to maybe like a Domino's Pizza that's always around our stores, right? More people will be willing to lean towards you, even though our pizza might cost maybe $1 or two more because it's it's handspun and it's fresh ingredients. And we're okay with that. I think our customers obviously we've been in business for six years now feel the same way that they're willing to pay $1 or two extra to have a superior product, right? So you know, that's how we really do dig in and what has made us successful is just sampling every single day and going out in the community we do lots of fundraisers to, we're huge on that we get 20% back, which, which is a great number, I think most of our competitors probably do 10 or 15. So, you know, it always starts at the grassroots marketing at the local level, which you don't really need much resources. So if you're a smaller business, don't get caught up with the bells and whistles of social media, Google ads, you guys can't compete with the big guys. But how you can compete with the big guys is make a relationship, a personal relationship with the people that are in your community, and they will give back to you. And that's, that's really our method, right take care of the community, they'll take care of you.
Zahra
That is so true and I just want to slow this down for people who maybe have missed the nuggets of brilliance that he's given you. But there's two things I want to go back and touch on the fact about, if you're talking about personal touches, I can tell you just as an example. So like this is my planner that that I get. And I love this planner, because it's fully customizable. We've already had like several conversations about my OCD control freak, I get to choose all the fields that are it is great. But so every year, I put a picture of my son as the cover. And I've been doing this since he was born. And every year when I ordered this planner and it's a pretty like it's even more expensive than Erin Condren like this is a pretty I don't spend money in many places. But like, I posted more money on the planet with a with a car. Like I love letters so much and but every year when I order my planner, I get a handwritten note that they comment like, Oh, you're you know, your boy is getting so big, I can't believe he's already in school, or I can't believe he's already you know, whatever the picture is, or looks like you had a great time that day or something. And it's that person, I'm going to pay to come and finish to write the card. I have no idea who this person is. But these are my these are my people. And it just solidifies that relationship that I don't even look for coupons from other companies. I don't even shop anywhere else. Because like, these are my friend or people. And if there's a better product out there, I don't care like these relationships like these relationships. They're good. I don't I don't miss but I don't know.
Sean
And you're happy with.
Zahra
And I love that I mean, obviously it has to start with a superior product. But what solidifies that and makes me loyal and doesn't put me up for grabs are those little things. And so I just wanted to retouch on that, because what you said, and you said it, you know, because for you, it's like just common sense, because you've been doing it for so many years. But for a lot of our customer or a lot of business owners out there and listeners, sometimes we think those things don't matter, or it's not enough to close a deal, or we have things that we do. So whenever we do a discovery call with a client, we always send a handwritten thank you card. And it seems so old school and all the cool kids are doing like, you know other things, right? But that everybody in the office signs it, we all you know, so great meeting with you. When we bring a new customer on board, you know, we have these gift boxes for them. And it has, you know, this very meaningful eye everything in there has a different meaning. And that's something that we love to do. It's a small thing, it's nothing. Grandiose doesn't cost us 1000s of dollars. But it lets them know that we're on this journey with them. And it lets them know that we care. And we see them as humans and individuals and we're rooting for them. Extra time. Yeah. And it's just those little things that you know, it's one thing to stay on your mission you believe in you care. It's another thing to show it, what you do action. And that's what reinforces that. So I just love that you said that. Because it was even when I saw the little picture on the box. Yeah, it wasn't even for me, but I was super excited to see I thought how cool that they knew that.
Sean
Yeah so we want this morning, actually, that, I'll send it to you. But it was pretty cool so it was her birthday, we went the day before to the apartment, the leasing office, and basically just taking a free lunch order for them, right? Because what we want to do is be in there moving packs, yeah, right. We want our menus in our moving packs, we want to be in their email distribution for their tenants, we want to handle any catering that they have if they have tenant parties at the pool, all those things, right. And that's what people don't realize either there's so many different things that you can get out of something so small. So today, we made her one of our cinnamon pie dessert pizzas. And when you opened up the box, there were the candles. So it looked like the candles were over and she loved it. And she posted a Google review five stars and that's what we need, right? And when you're opening a new location, that's just the momentum that you need, right.
Zahra
So I got a free sample I might not remember that I got a free sample with a cute little personal touch and I'm gonna tell my spouse or my friend, or whoever it happened to be on the phone with that day like you know what happened today. I got the sample and it has this little drawing and now it's a story it is you know, and we talk about that. You know right now It's so catchy like everybody's talking about brand new brand story and tell your brand story. And people sometimes think of it as like this one story like this, you know, origin story And yes, there's that but it's all the other stories that you're creating, because it reinforces the ideas and the brand standards and the brand promise that you've created, you know, from from a hierarchy level, like, what do we stand for? Who are we yeah, I thought it was super cool. So I just wanted to like, the first time we've now beating the dead horse, and you hear it now,
Sean
Those little personal touches go a long way because I think, you know, we just don't get them that much, right? We're so robotic in our transactions, and Amazon and eBay, and all these things that nothing is very personal anymore. So putting that little touch in which I love, you said, the handwritten note, it's, that's the way to do it. You know it, you showed the action, you took the time, and you made this person feel special. And that's really what it is. And what did that take us five seconds to draw up a little thing and have fun with our customers as well as another big thing right? It's fun, right? When you come into our restaurants, you're supposed to have a good time. So yeah, let's not take ourselves too seriously and have a little fun with our customers and they always appreciate that. So yeah, 100% put a little personal touch on it. You're not gonna get that from any other pizza place.
Zahra
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think the other thing you touched on that I just really feel like the listener, our listeners would be just, if you could implement this thing is he hit the nail on the head, you know, when you said about the samples, you know, giving them a taste. And so and even if you're a service based business, you want to give him a taste of what's to come. And now there's different ways that you would do that, right. So so one thing that we do, for instance, is we do a lot of speaking engagements, it gives them we give them either a workshop or a speaking engagement, something where they can implement immediate action, so that they can see the bottom line value of branding, right? Like how you treat that as an asset and that's, you know, not just a marketing expense, so they can see the difference. For food, it's food, right like, taste how good it is, see the difference? Like, I know, my pizza is $2 more, but taste it and you'll know why. You'll get to taste it that you just don't get with a social media posts that you just don't get, there's something there that and not to say that social media posts aren't good, they're good. But just kind of understanding where that is. And then understanding what is the right kind of sample to give somebody. So and figuring out that cost effectiveness. So I don't know if you want to talk about that just a little bit. So for us, we very quickly found out that giving free one on one sessions wasn't a way to build our businesses. But we could do a free speaking engagement help the community, it was a lower time investment. But we were still giving that sample, we just altered the way we did it to make it financially make sense and not have our marketing costs, go through the roof. Same thing for like, you know, we just did a skincare company. And one of the things with them as well. It's hard to do samples, because with skincare, you gotta use it for like 60 days, right. And so how do you give a sample that doesn't like, oh, it felt nice, but what does that do and so talking about how do we do the upgrade. So if we're gonna give a sample, maybe it's, you get a free bottle with your purchase of something. So it's worth it they're already customers and so you're getting the upsell. So it would make more sense for them to give a full size bottle away if somebody spends $100, for more for an existing customer than it would for them to give 1000 Mindy's away, and then we're like, well, it feels like every other lotion. Yeah, I don't see my wrinkles diminishing at all, because I've used it for a day and a half, because that's how much my sample lasted. So just like how do you what process do you guys go through when you're looking at samples or marketing and, and thinking like, well, I'm gonna get this place free many pieces of pizza versus this place, I'm going to cater a whole party for them or a whole bunch of for them how do you go through making those decisions.
Sean
Yeah, you know, thankfully, we're in the pizza business so it's a lot easier than skincare. It's immediate, right and also, pizza is very inexpensive. It's one of the cheapest food items out there as far as food costs. So as far as the franchisees, it doesn't really cost them anything, or very little, I should say, regardless of which way we go. So we're blessed in that in that department that it's very simple for us. But you know, depending on what we're going after, right, I'll go back to the apartments, because that's what we've done the past few days, we went straight to the leasing office, and we catered their whole staff. The reason we catered their whole staff is because that's a huge account for us. If we can have a great relationship with the apartment complex that has three to I don't know, 500 people living in the complex. That's a lot of sales for us so we take apartment complexes very seriously and we basically just give them free food. So when it comes to small business, what I like to do is go ahead and make customer contact first, and then I ask them straight up. What's your favorite pizza? How about you what do you like? And then I come the next day, and I wowed them with it. That one I can't believe you asked me that to I can't believe you remembered it, and three, I can't believe you actually came through. So, you know, we'll go after the bigger, bigger businesses at first, right apartments and, you know, hotels, there's a bunch of different things that we do with hotels too. But it just depends that's the best way to do it. Because when you're giving people food, especially with, you know, the vegan craze, it's just skyrocketing, right which we have not ignored and we offer vegan, you know, crusts and vegan proteins and vegan cheese and things like that. But that's why we need to ask, I will tell you five years ago, we weren't really asking those questions. You know, it just wasn't as as popular. But now you know, it's taken over, and we want to make sure that they're going to eat the pizza, right? So you know, I will ask them, if they're vegan, I say, great. Well, I have a cauliflower crust that's vegan and gluten free and would you like some, you know, if you can pepperoni and bacon cheese on and they lose their minds, because they're not used to that either. So, you know, I think being on an individual basis is really the best way to be. When you're dealing with bigger groups. Obviously, you can't have that personal touch for everybody as much. But like, we're talking about the just the little characters that were drawing, everybody saw that. So there are some small things that you can do to personalize it and really touch everybody but you know, as far as the sampling, I think the biggest thing was sampling is consistency. And that's the hardest thing. One of the hardest things for my job is to making sure my franchisees keep going out, right because it's very, it's very easy to get lackadaisical and lazy.
Zahra
They gave me pizza and never call me back. So that's it. Show up a few more times, let it let it simmer.
Sean
Consistency is the key.
Zahra
I did it once and it didn't work. It was like, well, yeah.
Sean
That's not how it works you know, and that's the same thing with like, you know, mailers that you're doing, if you're doing like a mass mailer, and you want to send your menu out, it takes three or four touches, before you're gonna get your results back, right. So, you know, a lot of franchisees are doing what you're saying, right? It's like I spent, you know, three or $400 and sent out all these mailers and I got two orders back well, that's okay. stay top of mind all the time. And you'll notice the big people right Domino's and those type of you're getting something in the mail all the time. That's why you're getting it because they don't want you to forget we that's the biggest thing.
Zahra
Yeah and I love that you said that, because it's really important. When we talk, you know about building campaigns. Campaigns become cost effective after you've optimized them, you know, what does that famous saying, nobody ever hit a home run the first time they went up to bat, right, right. And so if you're gonna spend the time, you know, to do mailers, once, make sure you have budget, spend the time and money to do it two or three times so that you can optimize it as you go. Otherwise, you've got done a lot of different marketing campaigns once, and none of them are efficient, and none of them are optimized and none of them are giving you the kind of ROI that you're looking forward. But if you have one that you're doing, you know, if you're doing one repeatedly, you can get smarter at it and get better at it and understand like, you had to do so many mailers to say to understand that, like subdivisions don't produce for me the way apartments do. But you have to do it, you have to learn that lesson through the data you know, and not just a one time data, but like data trends, and you can't get the trends if you only do it one once. So I think that's super important for people to hear, because that's a great nugget of wisdom from somebody who's done marketing and, you know, I yeah, I think I think that was just fantastic.
Sean
So you know, so I would say two more things on that consistency is huge and even more important, I think, in my opinion is follow ups. That's another thing that is easy to forget about to let go like you said I talked to them once well, what about two weeks from now? You know, you know another big thing that we use car dealerships right, car dealerships are huge for catering every Saturday. I'm talking to the big the big car dealerships, right everybody has to work on Saturday. They have to work nobody's off on Saturday, if you're a car salesman, yeah. So what does the company do they provide lunch because you can't you have to work and you can't leave on Saturday.
Zahra
You know what now that you mentioned the last one we bought a car you took my son with us and he was at five at the time. And you know, our intention was to go look and then come back and decide but by the time they're done with like you're there all day and we and then I was telling my house I was like we need to go like at six o'clock Robert hasn't eaten and very quickly. I was like, What is he like well ordering food I mean, they just I mean so yeah, they do they organize it for themselves, but even for their customers. Their absolute that was that was gonna be my exit strategy like alright, we got to beat the kid, let's get out of here. Let's stick to the plan and come back tomorrow but he already had an answer for that year. Do you have the food right on call and the other thing I love that you said was how you tie your brand's USP into what you're doing because you were talking about, you know, when you when you do the apartment complexes and you're talking about making showing off like your best stuff, right like your best foot forward. And for you guys that is your build your own pizza, like you don't charge extra for the toppings like it's all like build your like how you like it have it your way, right?
Sean
Wants a full price unlimited topping, that's our backbone.
Zahra
That's your magic and so when you're giving the samples to show that off is very smart, intuitive, because you're showing them like, isn't it nice to get a pizza exactly the way you want it, and you're giving them a taste of what that luxury you know, we talk about that a lot when we do restaurants. You know, we say well, instead of doing a Groupon, where you're gonna get overwhelmed, overworked, you're gonna have you're gonna get me started. You know, sorry, you're not about but what if you if you know, and then you're targeting a group that probably can't afford you in the real world in? So what if instead, you know, we talked about that about being stopped saying never give a coupon never give sales? But how are we smart so what if instead, you gave a free glass of wine or a free appetizer, you're giving them a taste of that, let's experience that Cadillac service, the best of the best that you have to offer. And so the people who are taking you up on that you already know they can afford a full price entree, you're upgrading them to the appetizer or the wine to give them such a positive experience and memory, they're going to naturally want to come back. And also you're showcasing so maybe they don't match usually get appetizers, but now they've tasted your appetizer. And so now you increase your GPA every time they come in from now until forever. Maybe they usually don't drink wine with dinner. But yeah, that wine was so good they're gonna order it every time they come in. And so just being like, whatever your secret sauce is leveraging that, because that's what makes you sticky. When you go to the apartment complex, I'm sure they get samples all the time, right, but you call them you got their order, you showed off the best you have to offer what makes you guys cool and unique and different from other pizza spots. And you use that to gain their attention to get their attention and keep their attention and then make you memorable. And I think that's super cool. And so as these as brands, and as business owners are trying to find marketing tactics that work, you know, how do they integrate their brand into that? How do you, you know, you spend all this time telling people how cool it is to build your own. But now you're showing them like, this is what it feels like to have a custom made pizza. So and that ended up just tremendous. Yeah, so one thing that I really loved when we talked the first time was when you talked about consistency, and be able to replicate something, how do we cut steps? How do we you know, so a lot of business owners, small business owners are creative by nature, they geek out on what they do, they take a lot of pride in what they do and so it's a bit of a difficult conversation, to talk about simplifying something, yeah. But but tell me about how about so tell me about how that works for you guys and how, because, you know, Urban Bricks is very unique and there's a lot of personality and personal touches there. And so you're able to keep a lot of that creativity but you're also able to do it in a consistently profitable way. That also gives your customers that's the safety so I know if I'm going to the one on Petrenko, if I'm going to the one at the rim, I know the kind of service I can get, I know how long it's gonna take me to get my food, I know how long the wine is going to be about, you know, like, I know, is it the kind of place that I can invite clients to or their kids running around you know, it's more of a family thing. There are things that we that we know and intuitively understand and that's beneficial for the customer as well. So can you talk a little bit about that, make your pitch here wxplain the benefits or something like that, and how you do that and still are able to keep the creativity?
Sean
Yeah, you know, I think I think a big part of our business is keeping it as simple as possible. And I think that's something that we've learned along the way, right? Being in a restaurant, a fast casual restaurant for us or any restaurant, you're going to have a lot of younger people working there. The more steps you add to things means that you're going to have more errors, right? So one example we considered, you know, cooking our own chicken and things like that, which gets complicated, right like it's expensive. There's a lot of margin for error, I didn't work out for us in the beginning. So really keeping everything as simplistic as possible. Like we were talking earlier about oven prices, which are very expensive, right but that's all we have is just an oven if it doesn't fit in our oven. We don't it's not on our menu. It's that simple and you know from a franchise model, the simplicity is key right. Even our menu it's very limited. There's not a lot there we have a the foundation pizzas for pastas and for salads, and a few other side items, right dessert, pies and wings. But most of our clients are going to come in and tell us exactly what they want on their pizza, pasta or salad and we'll just build it, the price doesn't change and everything's very simple. The minute you start trying to complicate things, is when things go downhill. So, you know, we take a lot of pride in trying to make everything, you know, from recipes, to checklists, to audits, I mean, the whole nine yards, why does it have to be so complicated for everybody all the time. And you know, going back to Sammy, that was another thing that he brought. It's like, everything is so complicated all the time. Why can't we just have it this way, and it's a B so we've worked really, really hard to try and get everything is easy. Like we're also talking business in a box, right like we have everything ready for you to be successful. And it's not going to take you a long time to learn, because there's just not a lot there. The biggest thing is obviously making our dough, everything else is on a line. It's not complicated, right I can teach anybody, literally anybody to work at Urban Bricks, and that's the beauty. But yeah, that's the beauty part is that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work, I can get anybody to work there. And you know, just when I'm hiring people, or helping franchisees hire people, it's, it's all about energy for me. As soon as somebody as soon as I interview somebody, and they start talking, it's if they're smiling and have eye contact, I'm already in because I know they're going to do that to my customers, too. And they need to match the energy of our brand, right if I have somebody I mean, we've all had that. It's like, what can I order for you or they're not even paying attention to you when you walk in? Nobody says anything. And it's just we can't have that. It doesn't leave a memorable experience but I think I've started taking a right turn here. But no, no, no, that's its simplicity is huge, right and then I know you said consistency, right which is always a challenge in a franchise. Does my pizza tastes the same in California, that it tastes in New Jersey? I think 90% we're there, right because of all of our, you know, recipes and checklists, everything that we do to get the store prepared to open and be consistent.
Zahra
And I think that that's, that is huge, because that is what people are paying for. So as a franchisee, or even even from a customer standpoint, you know, from from even that level, or paying for the brand has an asset, you know what I mean so like, we'll use Coca Cola, right. So you could get any heb or Kroger or whatever, you know, Mr. Pitt, whatever you can add cola hill country. My favorite and they've actually done blind taste tests where people could not tell the difference. Yet Coca Cola can charge double the game snd why is that when we can get you know, because we have a trust. It has been decades of that brand building itself as an asset that I can trust I've never heard of, you know, he'll country I've never tried it. But I do know, coke, I have tried that and I know consistently that I'm gonna get this good of a product. They're not changing the recipe every two minutes they're not you know, it doesn't taste different every time I take it, you know, I don't you know, the everything that's been curated for that. It you know, the thickness of the aluminum of the Canada, US to make sure it stays colder longer, like all the details that make that experience consistent, really builds over time. And so when people decide, now I want to buy an urban bricks and I want to run everything breaks, it's because they're buying that trust that you guys have built, that consistency that you built wouldn't be the same. If you had like crazy reviews all over the board. The same if you know, every, you know, if they if they were responsible for building their own menus wouldn't be the same if they had to choose for themselves what TO GO Box to use right. You know, all those decisions that just start to crush you and all those those variances?
Sean
Yeah, absolutely.
Zahra
You know, and just having that you know that that consistency, having the logistics worked out, having, you know, all of that I think is really key. But in order to do that in a way that somebody from Texas versus California could both execute simultaneously, and then get a similar product or very similar product out. Your ability to do that is what makes a franchise worth so much. It's what makes it so unique. It's a Chick Fil A affects every chick. I don't care what side of town you're on. I don't care what your demographic is. I'm gonna get a yes ma'am you know, stay very smiley. The food's gonna be top quality. I'm not gonna get a salad that's four days old. It's alright enough to pick up with it out.
Sean
Exactly. You know and know exactly what you're getting and they've branded themselves in a way to where you're very comfortable. Yeah, it's like for me, like if I go to a new restaurant, and I haven't eaten all day. I'm gonna go with what I know. I am not risking to try and get something else and I feel like it's the same thing because I'm in my comfort zone with this entree, right. There's no way I'm going to try something else because I took too big of a risk and that's really what it is. So, yeah, getting that consistency across all locations is key. We have to be consistent we have to, and it can be a challenge, right. I'm in San Antonio, and I have franchisees all over the place so how do we how do we do that. Well, we have weekly calls, and we have monthly calls and it's, we're just always on top of it, right. We watch all the reviews that come in every online order that that goes through, whether that's third party or you know, our own system has a feedback. So I know, the health of my restaurants without being there. I can tell the customers will tell me, and so so that's, that's another way that we build the consistency as the customers tell us, of course, they'll tell us. Yeah, if I, if I read you know that your bathrooms dirty by three customers in the same week, there's a problem and you know, that's when it gets addressed and hopefully, we swiftly take care of it. Right. But yeah, those are some of the ways that we're able to stay on top of that.
Zahra
So last question that I have, because I know I've kept you like way beyond really.
Sean
We got some really good conversations.
Zahra
I've enjoyed it tremendously. So give us some insider tips so if you are thinking of purchasing a franchise, or you're thinking of becoming a franchise for purchase, what are some things to look out for, what are the red flags and what are the indicators of like, Hey, this is a pretty legit brand, I would want to or I'm on the way I could franchises, it's that it's that good. Or this is a franchisor brand that I would want to be in alignment with, because they're gonna take it pretty far they've done the hard work.
Sean
I think, you know, right away, I think passion. If you don't have passion for what you do, no matter what it is, it's not going to be fun for you. So you need to make sure the passion is there first, whether if you love pizza, then that's probably something that you should get into. Because what's funner than making pizzas and tossing dough and flipping it around and it's a lot of fun. But if you hate pizza, it's probably not the right spot for you. So I would start there and then all you know, obviously, we're all gonna vet right, everybody, right. So you're gonna, if you're looking at a particular franchise, you're gonna look at their fees, the reviews, right. If you get to that point, and you can kind of go through and see, you know, how many have opened, how many have closed. What kind of team do they have, and then you go to the next step to where you're going to go meet the team, if you're that interested. Now we go meet the team and then, you know, like I said, before, we're a family, we try to keep it team oriented, family oriented as much as possible. We're still small enough to where it's viable, right it might be tougher to do that later on down the line when there's 500 stores, but we'll try our best. But yeah, so you definitely have to go through that process and be part of the family and know that this is an investment for the next 10 plus years, right, you're gonna sign a lease and sign your life away for 10 years. Let's be honest, that's really what it is because there's no going back after that, right. So you really need to make sure you do your homework and make sure you're passionate about what you want to do. You know, I talk to people all the time. I have, I was just talking to a gentleman yesterday from Florida, you know, never done franchise before he owns a couple of his own businesses. And, you know, trying to explain to him the benefit, right, is that you know, all those issues that you have to worry about that with your own business, you don't have to worry, we have everything ready for you. It's business in a box once again so you know, finding vendors and finding programs that work for you, and you know, all those things and all that research that that you have to do on your own to probably be wrong for the first couple of times on top of that aren't. It's a great way to put it, so going through all that we've we've done it for you already. So that's the biggest difference, I think, is actually having a full team supporting you. And you know, talking to somebody that owns their own business, they're used to just putting everything on their shoulders. And when you're in a franchise system, you have a lot of help, not only from corporate, but there's also franchisees. So one of the first things that I do, so this could be a red flag, since we're in this zone, if they don't let you talk to other franchisees, that might be a bad thing so one of the once we get further and further along in the process, they've come to meet with us. We like them, they like us, one of the first things I do is say here, I would love for you to talk to a few of our franchises franchisees because you know, it's always better to hear it from somebody else, right and that really helps. So they can ask them all the questions that they want, and not hear just from the big corporate people, right and get the real, real details that they want and know it's not just a sales pitch from us, right. So I think that's a big thing you definitely want to talk to people that are already in the system. So if they're not letting you do that, they're hiding something right for us we're like absolutely literally go talk to them, I'll give you a list of people, I'll introduce you on email and you guys set up a time on your own, I don't want to be a part of it. And then you call me, let me know if you have questions after and that's kind of how we handle it. We feel that's, that's the best way to do is because it also builds a trust factor, right. Because you're going to be investing so much money in so much time, you have to make sure that this is going to be the right fit for you. So you know, I guess, wrap it all up into a ball. That's that's those would be the things I would look for. And, you know, I know we're talking a lot about this as well as what's coming in the future, right or is this company going to be able to adapt? Like, COVID is a prime example of what happened and shocked the restaurant industry.
Zahra
A tremendous strain COVID I mean.
Sean
Which we feel very lucky and fortunate, you know, not I mean, we definitely prepare.
Zahra
You probably have delivery experts.
Sean
Yeah exactly so, you know, what's interesting about the COVID part is, I want to say, February, February, March timeframe, right, when the COVID, right, was starting to come out, we had just finalized our technology. So we had just signed up with a brand new loyalty system, brand new delivery system, gift cards, like the whole nine yards, right. Then, you know, 30 to 60 days later, COVID happens and then there's, you know, a two year waitlist now for that, because everybody rushed to try and get all those services. And I know, this is something that we talked about too and this kind of goes in with the franchise, when you're trying to choose a franchise is that you know, specifically restaurants all speak on that is the technology side is huge. You can ignore that so if if they don't have the right technology in place, it's going to be very hard for you to be successful in the future. Maybe it doesn't hit you right away but you need to me one of the things that we're always looking for, I'm sure you choose the trends, what's trending, what's coming, we're constantly looking at that we're constantly adapting, we're never the same. It's we're always changing, because if you're not changing, you're losing. Well, no, you don't, we don't change our whole makeup but there's little things that we adjust to the times, right.
Zahra
And that's exactly, you know, when we talk about branding, we're very similar in that way where we talked about the brand evolves, but it should never change. It should always when you don't I hate it when I heard you know, with COVID, it was so much about pivot pivot pivot. And I was like that makes me schizophrenic, left pivoting more evolution and if you have a solid foundation for who you are, what you do and who you do it for, you've got the foundations of a great brand. And then everything else will change, your products will always change, right but iPod becomes the iWatch, right like the offer will change. The pizzas will change but the standards like the brand, the core, you know, brand should not be pivoting like that.
Sean
100% Yeah so as soon as you do that, you're done.
Zahra
Yeah, you've created chaos, confusion, all the assets that you've built. It's like pulling out your 401 your target 45 and dropping it in Bitcoin and like hoping it goes well, like you don't want to be doing that exactly.
Sean
What's funny, that reminds me we did I think it was this year, or maybe the last year, we did an April Fool's on our Facebook and Instagram saying, hey, starting now, we're going to charge for every topic. Always crazy, which would go against everything that we're about, right so no matter what's happening, we're never going to stray from one simple price on unlimited toppings, and brick and fast, right those things will never change. It'll never change now we can make adjustments around it, but you can never change your vision and that's how you get people to join your vision, right is B consistency. Again, in so many different facets, it's that consistency is going to make you successful.
Zahra
I think I think that's huge, I think you know, so we will get people who come in and they'll ask, like, I want to get a whole new brand, you know, because they're bored of it or tired of it or maybe they bought it before they you know and so but a lot of times before we agreed to do that we always run a brand asset evaluation. Is there an asset behind your brand because if so, we don't need to redo the whole thing, right. Maybe it's just it's better to keep what you have, you know, maybe it's better to clean up but you've got you know, make a few minor tweaks here and there, make it you know, a little bit different. But there's not you know, like always, I'm gonna teach on my car every two years, I turned on my color and I wanted to do it. I was like, No, I mean, don't get me wrong, we can line item for all of that. But if it's not in your best interest, it's not in your best interest like you that's your asset that's your investment.
Sean
People get confused your customers won't understand
Zahra
Yeah, you cash in that asset every you know, couple minutes and you know, pull in that investment. There's a reason that tight, don't touch it. Two years are made, right and so if you keep touching it, you know, you keep messing with it. It creates confusion, it creates lack of efficiency, it creates you know, that clutter, you know that that you don't want, right and so now that's where you turn your your 32nd elevator pitch into the 45 Minute elevator pitch is like oh my god what are they doing? But yeah, I think that's that's really I don't even know what tangent we got on but I love...
Sean
Our three hour conversation is gone no straight it's all right turns and...
Zahra
It's called surprise nuggets, guys. But yeah, I think that that's super you know what you said is right on it, you know, having that consistency and being true like knowing what can change and then knowing what doesn't know what stays the same where to build your, you know, we call it a line of continuity versus you know, the marketing gimmicks like your branding should be the same. What changes is the coupons and the marketing tactics that the branding, you know, that's what time. And so, yeah, I love that you guys, that you guys do that how do you when you get new people, new franchisees and I know we talked about this, you guys do a tremendous job of like bringing them to home office to get their training, and then you go into their store. So like when you have a new franchisee how do you get them to buy in, how do you get them to like be all decked out in the merge Urban Bricks or bus, you built that into them so that when they can now spread it to their team?
Sean
That's a great question I would say that's, that's a team effort, I think it comes a little by little, you know, that starts all the way at the top with corporate when they come and meet with us, they need to like us and like our vision and share the vision. If they do, then it just makes a great relationship to start we're all in line with what we need to do. And then once again, talking to franchisees, if you're going to be a franchisee, what better thing to do than talk to franchisees. And, you know, a lot of times what happens when they come here, obviously, they're going to taste the food, right. So one of the things that I love to do is, they'll come in while obviously have a meeting, they'll meet the team, and then I take them personally out for the rest of the day, we go to a couple of Urban Bricks, and then I take them to a few of our competitors. And I let them choose, once again, we stand behind our brand and our promise and we're not scared to take you to our competitors, direct competitors, right. And we all go in and eat and I listen to their feedback and you know, that's kind of how it starts. So I think that's a really good way to do it is that I think my experience with dealing with other franchise, franchise ORS is that there's always some walls that they don't want you to get over and we try to leave those walls out and leave it as open as possible. Obviously, we can do it as freely, you're right there's there's rules and procedures and things like that, that we can get around. But for the most part, we want it to be very open communication and that's what we do, we take them and the food speaks for itself, we're very proud of our product, and we take them to our competitors, we come back, we listen to what they have to say. And during that whole day, we just kind of see if it's going to be something that's going to work between us right is the energy there, I always go back to energy, it's so important for our business, you know, if you don't have that energy in that drive, it's going to be hard for you to succeed at anything you're doing and that kind of goes back to the passion. If you don't have that passion, I don't know if I can get you to the next steps. So to me that energy and that passion starts off when we first meet, right and if that energy matches, it just it's a match made in heaven, right. And it doesn't always work out like that and that's fine, too because we want obviously, it's a partnership to give and take on both sides. So yeah, so that's part of our process and you know, getting them comfortable with our team, our brand, our product, seeing who they're up against talking to franchisees. So by the time they go through all that they have a really good idea of who we are, and if they fit in with what we're doing.
Zahra
Exactly so that's a lot of authenticity, I think, which is very rare in the sales process. Usually, there's a lot of boundaries here that they want you to see. And I think what's different, even even when we met, you know that first day, is that instantly struck me, you know, where you were very transparent. You were very authentic, you didn't sugarcoat anything. I mean, it didn't say anything but you were very, you know, just as a peer, you know, wasn't even that you were trying to sell us something we obviously weren't there to buy franchise, but it didn't matter. And it was just this level of and so instantly, I'm a fan, righ even if I never buy an Urban Bricks to franchise myself, I'm a fan for life like that's, and that's the kind of thing that happens when you create that authenticity, I think...
Sean
And the energy, right, it was just easy conversations, you know and that's what it's about. You don't want to put so many boundaries up and that going back to Sammy, there were so many hurdles for these franchisees to jump through to just get small things you know, even uniforms or a window claim, small things like that. We have a portal, they log in, they order it it goes shifts to the store. Ease of use ease of use, the more complicated the harder it is, the more that the franchisee is going to struggle so that you need to make sure you have all these ducks in a row right and it's easy once again, it's easy see as possible for them to run the business.
Zahra
Yeah, we, I love that you said that so from our end it, the thing that we call that is we reduce points of friction. So like for us was the same thing so when we deal with companies that are local change or pushing into that franchise model like that, we know that's a big contender, business cards, brochures, marketing, material uniforms, caps are to go. And so we have that there ready for them to order, we have an order, they've got the portal that they use, we also have. So one thing for us in our particular industry was, whenever we create the assets or collateral pieces, and everything, a lot of comes a lot of we were working, when we were with smaller companies, they don't necessarily know that tech, to know what to use. So we given them the so you know, given them the logos, and the patterns, and the guidebook and the PDFs, and like we've sent it to them. And what we were noticing is that without fail, if they wanted to get something simple, like Vistaprint, or move business cards or something they were trying to, I can't figure out I can't open the file that well, because that's an AI file right, like, right, you know, what is that. You don't know what you did, like, I couldn't change well, I couldn't change the oil in my car but I can do other things, you know. And so for these business owners, they can do tremendous things, just pulling opening a PNG file versus an AFI wasn't one of the friction point for them. Now, it's frustrating, because now they have a graphic designer, they want to wrap around their car, you know, or something like that. It's like, no, send me this file no, he says he wants his file. And so it's just, you know, they're frustrated, I know, you sent it to me in an email. So they're searching their inbox for the email we sent three months ago and say, you know, what, we're gonna give them a portal, and it's gonna have a button, and that button is gonna have all the assets downloaded, right. So they can share that link with whoever they want. Yep, it's gonna have the guidelines. So we're gonna tell them what their spacing is, what their pixels are, when it goes down below this, you no longer use this version of the logo, you use this version of the logo, it's gonna have, you know, you can combine these colors, you may not combine these colors, you know, just we're gonna I mean, all that, you know, you never write with lime green font, it's always black font with the lime green background, you can't read like, the rules, right. And so that those are some of the things that, you know, we saw was that we would give people these color palettes, and we get people you know, and then it was, you know, we likened it to, you can give three different people eggs, buttermilk, without a recipe, you're gonna get three different different. And absolutely give me that and so we saw those as like friction points. And so we were able to develop a system that worked for them at that level so when you are Cola, you don't need to go that specific, because they've got marketing directors with 30 years under their belt know exactly what those, you know, files look like and what to do with them. But when you're looking at those local chains, and those smaller business owners, they might not know how to put those things together or use them. And so they've got this great logo and this great color palette and this great, you know, guideline, but then how do you use it. How is it functional for you and so I love that you said that it's very much, you know, we call it eliminating friction points. So every quarter, the whole team gets together, even our virtual folks, and we all sit down what are the friction points. What can we do better, what do we think would work that didn't work. The way we wanted it to, how can we make it you know, reduce friction? How can we make this a smoother, more intuitive process for them so that they're not having to point to frustration for them. stopped that? Never
Sean
Sure so that's ongoing, right you never that ever, there's always there's always going to be something that you can make better snd in more simplistic, right, the easier the better. And you just you know, that's that's something that we're always looking at all the time, you know, the portal that we're talking about, that's something that we update constantly, constantly, we have new LTO is coming out, we got to drop it on there, right. We have we've made a new menu, we drop it on there, they can fill in their price points themselves, there's boxes, right like is what is the easiest that we can do for them because I don't want my franchisees spending that time on that. I want them talking to customers out there handing them out talking to the churches talking to everybody.
Zahra
Saying 30 minutes to center a logo on the flyer I want those 30 minutes out passing out flyers,
Sean
Right and going back to the you know, do you want to own your own business or have a franchise that's a huge, that's a huge point right there. There's just something that's just invaluable, having support like that so, you know, a franchisee could call us and say, Hey, I have live music like we did one for our Pleasanton store. They have live music going every weekend for the rest of the summer. So all she had to do was say, Hey, this is all the information and we can we customize it and send it she didn't have to worry about it. She can go out and market and then we're gonna give her professional quality. That's the other big thing is that we don't want them to do it on their own because it's not going to be as good as how we do it. Yeah, that's just the bottom line we have a professional in our office doing that all day long, with our exact color, exact everything. So it just makes it makes your life so much easier, you don't have to worry about all these obstacles and hurdles that you have to jump through. It's very ambitious to do it on your own, and it can be done but the work amount to get to, you know, to get to a point of our franchisees, if you put them next to each other, the franchisee is going to be going way faster, because they don't have all those issues that they have to worry about. They got a team actually supporting them so if you're a one star business, you can't afford that staff. So there's just no way for you to do it, you end up doing it yourself and it doesn't look good. It doesn't match the branding. The voice isn't there all those small things right just don't happen the right way so that's a huge that's a huge thing.
Zahra
I think when we do you know, work for customers, when we hear frustration and say I don't get it, you know, they come to us like I don't get it. They do flyers, I do flyers, we're doing the same thing. It's not producing. It's like, you do flyers, you don't do flyers like they do flyers, you know and so there is, you know, there is that level of professionalism and that consistency that you definitely. So I think the main Oh, if you need support, whether you're whether you have an agency doing it, whether it is a franchisee, who uses an agency or has their internal team, but we we know, that you can't be good at all things. And so the ones and so the advantage of is marketing is not your thing, if it's not something you're interested in franchising is a fantastic option, because they have a team of support to help you with that. And they also are getting support so we work with a lot of these franchises that, you know, branding, like we said, branding, marketing, it's always evolving, it's always it's maintenance. You don't do to sit ups in your fit person and so it's constantly so doing those checkups, you know, every six months, every month, every year, you know, sitting down having all these sessions with stakeholders. So how's the brand going? What can we look at? What are we looking at opportunities? What do we see on the horizon from other companies? What's competition doing? What does this look like? Hey, we're thinking of rolling out a new pizza. You know, does that make sense for the brand? Does it not, you know, just really honing that in our ways like Google, Google has evolved as a brand so much. There's so much consistency. It's not, I think, how many how many logos Google Gmail but we all think of that, we all think of it with consistency, because there's never a whole revamp, it's always the cleaning up.
Sean
But it's the same thing, it feels the same.
Zahra
But if you looked at one from 1990, today, different but feels, they're still able, because they understand that you don't just brand was like we branded in 1990, we got our logo, we're good. You know, they're always it's always that maintenance and upkeep and that can get really expensive. If you don't have plans to scale, if you don't have a friend, you know, if you're not moving towards that franchise, and so if it's not something that you want to deal with, you know, it doesn't excite you to do that, than having a company, you know, or using a franchise leaning on them, because they are doing that and they do. They can't afford the advertising agencies, they can't afford branding firms, they can't afford the marketing firms. They can't afford their own internal team that's doing all of that and keeping up with that. And, you know, sitting down for days at a time thinking about it right sometimes that slow down process where he where you Birdseye it that you just don't have to do that time to do when you're an owner operator, and you're slinging pizzas. Like when do you sit down and think about what the direction of the brand should be exactly have that time. And so I think that's really cool to have, you know, it's a really good option. If you're an operations guy, if you're an executor guy, you know, or gal, like, that's a really cool way to say, You know what I hate selling, or I hate marketing. I don't love it. You know, that's a really, really awesome way to say I can still be a business, I can still own a business and hate marketing. I just got to find the right way to do it in franchising, you know that becoming a franchisee is a great way to do that.
Sean
But I think it eliminates a lot of risk. because there's a lot of unknowns when you open your own business. So that's one way to look at it is, you know, which I've seen, sadly, too many times is people, let's just say spend $500 a week in Google ads. They don't even know what Google ads are. They don't know what it does. Somebody told them to do it and so they did it. And they got zero back right so that's those are mistakes and risks that you take, not knowing the information. So when you're in a franchise, you have a whole team of people to give you guidance, right we're not going to tell you you need to do it this way, per se, but we're going to advise you that hey, store X has done this two years ago, and this is actual facts. This is so let me give you the facts before you jump on it and see if it makes sense for your location so there's just a lot of risk with that. So coming on to a franchise is going to eliminate a lot of those risks. We're going to tell you, that's not going to work, you're not going to get any profit back on that. You're just you're not going to get anything back, you know, so that's another big differentiation.
Zahra
And even just in the area, you know what I mean because you've got so many of those, you've got 35, you can pull your own internal data. So you can say, this kind of marketing works better in rural, not so great. Exactly this kind of marketing does great and urban, not performing in rural. So it's very specific that you're getting really I mean, it's highly efficient information. They're even talking to your brand so it's called the doppelganger. I mean, you are exactly who you are exactly your market and it's not just like, this is what works for you might, what works for McDonald's might not work for you. That was a franchise, your test is Apples to Apples like same brand, same client base, you know, same marketing, and I and I have actual data, what that specifically will do.
Sean
Yeah, what's interesting about that, too, is that even within the same company, so that urban breaks, we have different concepts we have, you know, we have 600, square foot places inside walls, we have, you know, to go delivery, only takeout delivery, and then we have places with full bars, right so, it depends, once again, your location, and what kind of urban bricks location you want it to open is going to dictate where we're going to go, right. So obviously, for like a mall location, maybe delivery is not where it's at, right just as an example. So it all depends on the concept to in which direction and we've, as a franchisor, we've already gone through all these things and got the data, and we can educate, you know, we can with a lot of knowledge tell you and show you on paper, this is what's going to happen more than likely if you go with this route. So it's like having a, you know, a financial adviser almost right? What do I do with my money and will give you different ways that the money is going to make is gonna work for you, right. So that's, that's the biggest thing is having that support is the biggest difference between trying to do it on your own and going to a franchise, it just makes your life a lot easier, a lot less stressful. And our job is to keep you in the store as much as possible and not have to worry about all those other things because we're here to support and support you on that like social media, right they don't, they don't really have to do anything. The franchisees don't have to do much we're already taking care of all that, right. So it's just another thing off of your shoulders, running a restaurant, it's very hard. It takes a lot of time. It's a lot of hustle so we want you to concentrate all your time on that not all these other things, we take care of all that.
Zahra
Are there any other like any other piece of advice that you want to give to anybody? I was like reading the notes like I forgot to mention that you guys increase your franchising quick, like 400% to COVID that's really cool. I'm just shows, you know the power of a good brand, and that it can survive, you know, the environment and I have a Snuggie case study I go through that will leave for another day. But it just goes to show that the economy, you know, everything could be tanking. But if you've got a good solid brand, doesn't mean you're out for the count like you can do tremendous things with a good brand, no matter the environment bricks and mortar shirt ticket, the hit during that time.
Sean
Oh, big time, you know, I guess parting advice, if somebody's out there looking to open their own business or join a franchise system you know, if you're looking for a restaurant in particular, because that's my field, right. Stay away from brick and mortar, like you just said, we're looking at second gen spaces all day. There's so many good deals out there right now and you know, not even good deals, incredible deals, locations that would never be available during normal times. So if you're looking to jump on something, this is a time to do it and most people I don't think realize that they can COVID everything, you know, a lot of bad things, which is true. But that also, you know, with the good came or with the bad came some good friction and now we have a lot of opportunities and a lot of spaces available that would never been available before. So if you're in the market for something like that, that's what we're trying to do right now, where we're really not pushing any brick and mortar locations. We'd rather just take over a second gen location, cut your costs and a half and get you up and running and half the time so there's there's a lot of things in a lot, a lot of great real estate out there for people that are interested in that.
Zahra
And we're seeing that now too so we've got like, resorts going up. I mean, a lot of our clients are just buying we've been slammed because a lot of our current clients are just they're buying horses or grand openings. You've got rollouts, you've got new locations, because real estate right now for a second gen spa is I mean, there's just I mean, it's unfortunate that that it happened the way it happened, but with that is new opportunity for people who are ready to take that on.
Sean
Yeah, and I think the last thing I'll say on that is, you know, that's something also very proud of with urban bricks is that we're very flexible, right. We're not so big to where everything has to be this exact way, right if you find a second gen space, we're going to work with you on it right if the chairs are pretty close to what our chairs look like, we're gonna let you keep them, we're not money hungry to where you have to buy our chairs, right/ Same thing, like we said, it has to have our field, it doesn't have to be exactly the same, but it's going to have to have our energy and field. So that's what we're doing with a few people right now and it's just, there's a lot of opportunity right now. And if we're willing to work with it, and yeah, that's, that's pretty much it.
Zahra
Sean, thank you so much. I know we've been novelized your whole day. I feel very glad that you came and you shared, I think there's a lot of people listening right now that are hearing this information. And what you've said today has saved them 10s, if not hundreds of 1000s of dollars of headaches. And, really what most small business owners struggle with, when it comes to big decisions, like this is just the overwhelm. I wish I had the inside scoop on what it's really like to own a franchise or what it's really like to start a franchise or you know, all of those things. And so I think that I thank you for your time, I think you've made brought up some incredible points that you're not going to, you know, just read on the blog, you know, some some, you know, random, you know, Tuesday Tip.
Sean
We went on a day in the life, it was a day in the life.
Zahra
That's cool. I think that's great and I think it helps it even you know, it helps bring so much clarity and simplicity. It's really broke it down like this is what you're looking at, but one way versus another this is how you test if it's a great fit for you.
Sean
Yeah, absolutely this is the same way that we talked to a franchisee that's coming in, right, no notes. There's nothing here for me to read off of let's let's just talk, you might not be perfect, but it's gonna be authentic.
Zahra
Yeah, I love that. Thank you again, I appreciate it. We're gonna have some links for you guys in the shownotes so that you can go check it out if you're interested in starting a franchise and you want to get some information on that. Or just download a copy of the show notes and some of the notes and info that we talked about today and a little more structured than this finding discussion, which we always love doing. So thanks again guys and we will see you next time.
Sean Knox
COO of Urban Bricks Pizza
Urban Bricks Pizza serves 'brickin' good' authentic, customizable Neapolitan pizza with an all-American attitude.
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