People are always surprised by the suggestions consultants give them during the search process. This week's podcast guest is Derek Wolfe, who was an entrepreneur in the tech world and decided to invest in a franchise.
No matter what you do now, there is a franchise that will fit you. Derek is proof of this. Hear his story and tips for being a successful franchisee.
Pete: Well, good morning, Nat.
Nat: Hey Pete, looks like you're someplace warm today.
Pete: Oh, I'm wishing, boy, I'm freezing. I did tell you, last night when we get freezing rain, it's cold. We've got probably two feet of snow in my yard right now, it's crazy.
Nat: Yes, it's a big effort to get out to the bird feeder and load it upright.
Pete: Absolutely. Now I'm not complaining; I mean, if you're in Texas, you're not used to this stuff. I feel so sorry for all our friends in Texas.
Nat: Yes, they have to bunker in. They probably don't even have snow plows.
Pete: Well, they don't. I mean it's more so they don't have heat and water. So boiling your water all that kind of stuff is kind of crazy. So much for global warming, right?
Nat: There'll be a lot of water damage and probably a lot of home repairs that will have to be done.
Pete: Yes, absolutely. I mean, you see videos of people showing that their pipes popping and water cascading in their houses. I wouldn't wish that upon anybody, right? Water is just so tough.
Nat: Yes.
Pete: Well, speaking of home improvement, we got a wonderful guest today Nat. We've got Derek Wolfe from a 360 painting. So I thought we'd spend a little time talking to Derek, he's a great guy.
Nat: All right, let's do it.
Pete: All right, welcome Derek.
Nat: Hey Derek.
Derek W.: Hey, good morning.
Pete: How are you?
Derek W.: I'm doing well; how are you guys?
Pete: Awesome to have you with us. Now first, hopefully, you're not freezing to death or anything else like that? I know you're in the Pacific Northwest. How are you holding out with this weather?
Derek W.: Yes. We've been digging out of the ice and snow, and things are back to normal for us.
Pete: All right, very good. Well, Derek, I met you a couple of years ago, and you were an entrepreneur, right? Entrepreneur in tech, you were a partner in a tech company, is that right?
Derek W.: That's right, yes. So I spent my first ten years at a fortune 500 tech company, growing departments and teams, and business analytics and decision support systems. And then broke out on my own, started doing software consulting. So I did that for a number of years and then started this next business.
Pete: All right. So let me think when we start talking about the idea of investing in franchise, right? So you're a tech executive, you're doing tech consulting. And then you went through the process, and you invested in a 360 painting franchise, right?
So my question for you is that's a big jump from being a tech executive, tech consultant, to being a paint franchise owner, right? So painting franchise owners. So tell us a little bit about what your thought process was with that.
Derek W.: Yes. It looks like it's a big jump from the outside. But for me, I'm relatively risk-averse. So the lure of a franchise and a paint company was, it marked a lot of boxes that were familiar to me. So the franchise and paint model was very similar to how we were running our software consulting business.
So it's a service-based business; we have customers, we go out and do sales and try to find customers. So some of those similar behaviors are similar, and then to go provide a service, a painting service in this case or a software service, just provide the right product and the right market for the right price. So to me, it's a service-based business, which was very familiar to the software consultant.
Pete: So you got all this business acumen, right? Of servicing customers. Whatever business, so why did you not start your own painting franchise or start your own kind of service-based business? Another one opposed to investing in a franchise?
Derek W.: So this is my fifth business I've started. And the other businesses were successful; there was one giant failure that I had. That was when I was starting to develop a product and develop a business model from the ground up. So the reason that my next endeavor was a franchise was because I wanted a business model already out there, right?
Like you said, I've developed some skills and behaviors over the last 20 years in business. And I wanted to take those skills and apply them to a business, an already proven business model. So as I did my industry scan, I kind of landed on premium brands and 360 painting as kind of that next endeavor. I loved the business model. I liked the software model that they have, and so that's what attracted me to them.
Pete: So a lot of people they'll say it's a lot of hard work to launch a business, right? Whether you're starting out with a big idea or a franchise. But sometimes, it's an easier path with a franchise because they got the systems, the process, procedures. Did you actually see that it was an easier path?
Derek W.: Oh, it was, there's less risk. So you have a system that's in place that's been proven for years, right? Across a variable set of different people.
So you're taking people from different backgrounds, and sticking them into this model, and proving it out time and time again, right? So that's one less risk you have other than trying to start a business from scratch and trying to figure out all those pieces that you've got to put together.
Pete: So many executives like yourself or entrepreneurs, they look at franchising. What would be a piece of advice you'd give somebody that's thinking about? Hey, maybe I should look at investing in a franchise business; what piece of advice would you give them?
Derek W.: Well, if you like working for somebody else, or giving getting direction from somewhere else, then that's not franchising. I mean, you have to be able to be self-driven, not afraid to solve your own problems.
You're going to see roadblocks on a weekly or even daily basis, and you've got to have the confidence and troubleshooting skills to figure your way through them and around them any way you can. There's going to be plenty of obstacles in your way. So I kind of, if you're a troubleshooter, then new business and franchising is for you.
Pete: Excellent. And one of the questions I would like to ask is what attributes do you think somebody should have to be an entrepreneur, to be a franchisee. You already mentioned one of them, right? A problem solver. Entrepreneurs have to be problem solvers. But what other characteristics do you think somebody has to have to be a successful franchisee?
Derek W.: I think self-driven, obviously problem solving, setting your own goals, and wanting to beat those goals as well are some of the attributes that I'd list off there.
Pete: Right, so hard-working, problem solver stuff like that. What about leadership skills? I mean you're leading your own organization, your own team?
Derek W.: Yes. I think leadership is important as you continue to grow. I've added several team members to my business. In franchising, there's different models, 360 painting. There are some people that are a single owner-operator, right?
So they're doing it all themselves. So you could, if you didn't want to leave people necessarily, you could operate a small size business without having to do that.
Pete: Now, is 100% of your time go towards your 360 painting franchise leading that? Or are you doing other businesses in addition to it?
Derek W.: So I still lead my consulting business one day a week. Then five or six days a week, I'm working on growing the 360 business. So 360 is definitely my focus right now; I'm getting the people and practices in place to continue to grow and scale that at the moment.
Pete: Yes. You've been very successful, you've been recognized as one of the top franchisees I know with 360 painting. So far, your experience has been good. So as you look at kind of this overall going forward.
I mean, all the stuff we've got going on, where do you see us going from a standpoint of economy? You're seeing it every day as you're touching homeowners and stuff like that. But where do you see business going?
Derek W.: Yes. So I'm very optimistic for 2021. We're seeing that already, in this first part of the year. We're seeing year-over-year growth as far as sales and the number of productions projects we're doing. The vendors that I work with closely their forecasts are great. So we're looking forward to having a great spring and summer painting season.
Pete: Yes, absolutely. Hopefully, the weather will hold for you a little bit here, right? So a ton of business experience, what would be, as you look back at your career, what would be the one piece of advice somebody's giving you that you'd like to pass on to everybody?
Derek W.: So I think one thing that's served me well over the number of years is tracking your business. So it's natural for me because I come from an analytics background. But I don't think you can do it enough. Know your PNO inside and out, right?
Really understand what those line items are saying and know almost more than your bookkeeper does about your PNO. And then those KPIs really set solid KPIs and stick to tracking them on a weekly basis. That's one of the things that's helped us grow, and it really lets you see where you can get behind from a week-to-be week basis and where those opportunities are to catch up.
Pete: So, do you look at them every day? I mean, you get up first thing in the morning, look at them, plan your day; how do you do that?
Derek W.: I don't look at them every day. I have a review that I force myself to do on a weekly basis. So there's some that I will track and accumulate on a weekly basis, but then I will make changes on a monthly basis.
So although I'm collecting a lot of these stats, I'm not reacting to that. One, for instance, close rate, I won't tweak our sales processor or resourcing there or even our marketing plans based on this week's close rate. I'll wait for a trend to start, you know, coming in.
Pete: Got it, that's a great discipline; wow, congratulations on that. So I know everybody, successful people whether you're an athlete or you're an executive or a business owner, you have mentors or coaches, or you follow certain thought leaders. Is anybody that you kind of follow to look for some of that?
Derek W.: There is. I mean there's been a guy here locally, Steve Bissell, who's been a friend locally, and been a mentor of mine for a number of years, 20 plus years. But more in the public space, I'm just thoroughly impressed from Elon Musk what he's able to do. The courage and the will to defy the odds and just get out there and take risk. I mean, the guy is, he's launched several businesses, and you can see some rockets crashing to the ground, and he dusts himself off and launches some more. What he's able to do is just inspiring.
Pete: Yes. I think he sometimes takes the impossible, makes it possible. He's the Henry Ford of our age. I think we're lucky to have him because he's stretching the boundaries in so many things.
Derek W.: Yes, what he's been able to do in the vehicle space and for rocketry and whatnot, it's just amazing.
Pete: Excellent. Nat, you have any questions?
Nat: Yes. I always like to kind of ask, like do you have any like daily routines or like working out or food you eat or nutrition anything like that, that kind of keeps the momentum going?
Derek W.: I mean, definitely exercise is key. So I'm up early, and then I take kind of a midday break to get exercise in. I find that's the great you know de-stressor as well, things are going to build up in this business, and part of my troubleshooting process is take a break and go exercise and whatnot. I've got certain eating habits that I work through and whatnot.
Nat: So, did you ever read that book the power of when?
Derek W.: No, I don't think I have, but I'll jot that one down; I'll have to look that up.
Nat: It's super interesting because there's like four different body types, or yes, really basically body types. But the interesting thing is for different people, it's more beneficial to exercise during certain times of the day. So you might actually stumbled across like for some people the perfect thing to do is kind of let like early afternoon, and then because you're a morning person, exercise like after lunch or whatever and then kind of catch your second win.
I'm exactly the same way, that's like I get up early, do a lot of work and then go to the gym and then hit it again. But it's so interesting just how you know people seem to get their routines to be successful, yes.
Pete: What if you don't have a routine where you do it regularly like me?
Nat: Pete takes his towel and puts it on the bike. It's a towel rack, right Pete?
Pete: I'm paying for that membership. I could take [Inaudible 00:14:06.05] absolutely, so good. Derek, what's your favorite book?
Derek W.: So right now, I'm reading through profit first for contractors by Sean van Dyke. So being in the paint world and very adjacent to construction, that's been a great a great book right now. I think over the course of the years; I think one of my favorite books has really has been really start with why by Simon Sinek. So that's something that I always after is the answer to the whys.
Pete: Yes, that's a great book. We've talked about that before in a podcast, so that's awesome, perfect. I know you're very diverse in terms of your hobbies, right? You fly. You still doing some flying?
Derek W.: I've taken a little bit of time away from that as I started the paint business. But hopefully, as we thought out here in the northwest, I'll be back into that this spring. I've got some goals outlined for myself for this summer flying season as well.
Pete: Yes. Well, I know you're a diver, and I'm not going to even ask the question, have you been diving lately. Because nobody's doing anything from that standpoint.
Derek W.: Yes. I haven't made it into the water for a few years now. But yes, maybe a couple years to come.
Pete: Well, congratulations on all your success. It's fun to see somebody that's been an executive, been an entrepreneur, and decide to invest in a franchise. And certainly be successful like you, so congratulations on your many successes. Thanks for everything you shared with us today.
Derek W.: Well, yes, thank you, and couldn't have done it without you. I mean, I ran across you, and you helped me through this process. So that was kind of the tip of the iceberg there, so appreciate it.
Nat: Does it seem like yesterday, or does it seem like ten years ago?
Derek W.: Well, it was, I think, a couple years ago now. I took my time as I was looking through the different models to look at and I kind of defaulted back to my analytics nature for sure.
Pete: Yes. So question for you is like when I came back, and I presented you with some franchise concepts, right? And one of the things I would say is have an open mind. So when I presented painting to you, right? You're coming from a I.T. executive, I.T. consultant, right? So did you think I was crazy when I presented the painting franchise to you?
Derek W.: No, I thought you were crazy when you presented some of the other ones to me.
Pete: We don't need to talk about those, please. Well, stay warm; thanks again; congrats on your success. I look forward to our next conversation.
Derek W.: Great. Well, thanks so much for your time, and it's great to see you guys.
Nat: Thanks, Derek.
Pete: All right, take care, bye-bye.
Derek W.: Bye.
