[00:00:00] Kevin Stafford: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Conversations with Coaches podcast. I’m your host, Kevin, your usual host, your standard host, and I am delighted to have made the acquaintance of Gregory Moore today. Let me tell you a little bit about him before we dive right in. Greg is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Real Freedom, why franchises are worth considering, and how they can be used for building wealth.
Now, he’s managed restaurants, been a microelectric circuit engineer, which is just Unassailably cool, in my opinion, and owned and operated dry cleaners, storage units, rental properties. And most importantly, Greg has helped hundreds of people invest in franchises. Greg, it’s great to meet you. I’m really excited to talk to you.
I haven’t really talked with anyone with such a specific focus on franchises. So I’m really excited to dive into who you are and what you do and how you do it.
[00:00:48] Greg Mohr: I appreciate that, Kevin. And thank you very much for allowing me to be on your show. I’m honored.
[00:00:54] Kevin Stafford: Thank you. Oh, well, let’s dive right in. I love to, I always love to start out by asking about like your superhero origin story as I sort of cheekily referred to it like how you got, how you got your start not in your chosen business or your chosen folks necessarily, but particularly how you chose like coaching or guidance.
Or to essentially how you, how you decided to give back and impact the world in the way that you’ve chosen to with this particular effort with franchise, the franchise Maven, I think you’re called, which I really, I really do like that. And in my head, I’ve been thinking about you as a franchise coach, which I’m like, you know, I don’t know that I’ve ever talked to someone who I could, I could accurately describe as a franchise coach.
So I’m curious how you decided to, to go about becoming the franchise Maven. Well, first
[00:01:36] Greg Mohr: off, just to the coaching part itself, I, you know, I didn’t realize, you know, that I could be a good coach or help people out until, you know, during my, my time as a, uh, electrical microelectronic circuit engineer for Motorola, the semiconductor, they were bringing in a new software system and, uh, they liked the way I guess I talked or I spoke with people.
So they put me in charge of helping out the engineers and showing them how to learn how to use the system. So I just started coaching them and I trained, you know, a few hundred engineers on that. And people were just like, yeah, I get it now. I get it. It’s cool. And it was, it’s a really good feeling when you teach people like that.
And then they get it, the light bulb goes off in their head. So, you know, after a while I was in, you know, I was a restaurant manager for 15 years. I was a microelectronic circuit engineer for 15 years. Kind of showing my age there a little bit. Um, but when I, when I got out of the, uh, The corporate world, I decided that it was time to do something different on that because the corporate world after a while was just, you know, not, not for me when I first got a job.
It’s like most of us did back in the 70s or 80s or so. I went to work for, um. A restaurant chain. Of course, fast food restaurants. A lot of us get our start there and it was a Taco Bell and I actually ended up working for a master franchisor and she owned about 50 Taco Bells throughout Sacramento, California area and I helped her with her restaurants and I thought that was You know, I didn’t know at first, but I’d learned that that was a franchise and she taught me that, you know, she owned the 50 of them and then I helped her grow those restaurants.
So when I got out of the corporate world, I thought back to my, my Taco Bell days and I thought, you know, that was a whole lot of fun. It was really simple and easy to operate those. So I decided I would get into franchising. So I started clicking on the internet and finding all these different franchises, all these different franchises, people calling me.
I was like, ah, but I finally ended up with a couple of franchise consultants. And they were just, they were really good. They said, okay, put everything on hold. Let’s see where you want to go, see what you want to be. And they helped me find the right franchise. So I got into a telecommunications consulting franchise.
Again, being a consultant, helping business owners with their telecommunications needs. Did that for a couple years. And then I was, but I kept thinking about what do those, those franchise consultants that I, I got involved with. I started thinking about what they do. And they got to work with all sorts of fascinating people throughout the United States and basically throughout the world.
Helping them change their lives for the better forever through franchising. And a lot of people just don’t know franchise consultants exist like that, you know I think I like that because with the, with the business consulting, it was great, but I had to drive around to businesses and talk to them in person, whereas with the consulting, I got to work from the comfort of my own home, which is really great.
A little bit of discipline involved there with trying to, you know, with all the distractions from the home life. But once you got through that. And you got your schedule down. Uh, I thought that would be the, just the greatest thing, uh, in the world. So I started doing that about 10 years ago and yeah, it has been great helping other people realize their dream.
Uh, like
[00:04:31] Kevin Stafford: I did with mine. It’s so it’s kind of, so it’s, it’s, it really is. It’s, it never gets any less amazing, no matter how many times I encounter it, both in my own life or in other people’s lives, when you, when you have that moment, when you realize that you can re you can really have. I throw this word out kind of loosely, but like an exponential amount of impact on the world and people’s lives for the good, for the positive, and also do it in a way that allows you to like, you know, quote unquote, live your best life, find the way that you, you know, want to live, live well, live best, can be there for your family and yourself and also serve your chosen community very well.
I mean, it’s just, you said that you talked about that light bulb moment earlier on and how, how attractive that is to the whole con, the whole idea of coaching is just beautiful. When that, when you watch that go off, when that light comes on behind someone’s eyes and they get something, there’s just nothing like it.
And I just love that coaches understand that so well, because they’ve, they’ve experienced that light bulb from the inside, like they have felt the warmth of that light going off and realizing, oh, I can, I can do it this way, do more. And not run myself ragged, I can actually be of great service and help without, you know, burning a candle at both ends, so to speak.
[00:05:39] Greg Mohr: Exactly right, Kevin.
[00:05:40] Kevin Stafford: Exactly right. Man, I love that. You really are like a builder at heart. I love, I love, I, it, it, it almost like at first blush, it might not make sense, so to speak, that you have that, that, um, electric circuit engineer kind of experience in your background, but like, as you tell your story, it’s like, it makes total sense.
You love connecting.
[00:05:59] Greg Mohr: Yeah, very true. And you know, as a restaurant manager, I love talking with people all the time. That was the best thing about it. Working 12, 14 hours a day wasn’t the best thing about it. When I was there, I got to talk with people all day long, so it really didn’t seem like a whole lot of work because it was just so much fun connecting with others and getting to know them and their
[00:06:15] Kevin Stafford: story.
It really does have its own kind of momentum. That’s something that, it’s so easy, it is easy to forget. It’s also easy to remember, but it is easy to forget how much power you get from just connecting with people. How much, how much, I, I’m, I’m Accidentally making electrical engineering puns. I don’t mean to, but it’s just the way my brain works.
Like you get this charge or it’s a real charge from just connecting with people. So that it’s one of the only, only ways that the restaurant business works, because those hours do get very long and there’s a lot that goes into it. But man, you do get a lot of energy from just connecting with people, serving, serving people and serving with them, you know, where you’re just, where you’re all like united behind the goal of, you know, providing service to others.
Or it’s, it’s just, it really is. It, I mean, it, it, it is draining, but it also is empowering and powerful. And I just, I love the way that works.
Yeah,
[00:07:07] Greg Mohr: it was. Yeah. The long hours were kind of cringing sometimes, but you got those rushes where all the people came in and that really broke up the day a lot. And that was
[00:07:14] Kevin Stafford: right on.
Fond memories working at, working in the service industry, but also I’m glad that their memories for the most part, it’s like, I think it’s much better in, in, in retrospect than it was in the moment. So I like, it’s in the right spot. It’s settled in the right spot in my, in my internal autobiography. That is so true.
So let’s, let’s bring things to today. And I kind of want to talk a little bit about like the nuts and bolts of your approach. Um, and I tend to ask this as a two parter, cause I feel like it really kind of gets at the heart of, of everything that, that, that a coach does, who do you coach, which we’ve kind of obviously already talked about, um, and how do you coach them?
Now the, who obviously you coach people who are interested in becoming, um, in getting into franchising. But there might be a particular, or age range or obviously types of businesses. You have so much experience with restauranteurs and restauranteurship. Um, so the who being however specific or general you want to get with that and the how being your methodology, your approach, how much of your coaching is one to one.
Do you do any sort of group coaching or masterminds? Obviously you’ve written a book. I’m wondering if you have any other sort of like courses that you run or keynote speeches that you do. So yeah, basically who do you coach and how do you coach them today?
[00:08:27] Greg Mohr: Great questions, Kevin. So, first one, who do I coach?
You’re right, anybody that’s interested in franchising. More specifically, who I coach is people are, that are a couple of different, uh, couple different demographics there. We’ve got the, uh, corporate people. They’re either looking down the road and seeing that corporate jobs, not too bad, but I’m not going to get to where I want to be making the income that I’m getting today.
So I need something on the side. I need to do something either passively or semi passively on the side to get me to where I want to be financially so that I can step away from this corporate job whenever I want to. And then there are those corporate refugees who are just like, I’m done with it, like I was, you know, I’m done with it, I want to go run my own business, show me how I can do that, show me where I can do that.
And then another group, a lot of them are investors, I get a lot of real estate investors that do that, people that own other businesses. They either want to, uh, expand out in their business as far as turning it into a franchise, converting it to a franchise, or they want to diversify, picking up another business, another franchise business.
So they have a couple different sources of income on that. Uh, real estate investors are real good, uh, because there’s a lot of different things through the real estate world that you can do in franchising. As well, that’s relates to the real estate world. So those are real good uh in my demographics generally, probably 35 40 to On up to about 60 70 80 sometimes 80 which is kind of surprising But I just just get a gentleman the other day who was 23 just out of college and he started working At his job and he’s like I don’t want to do a job.
I’ll run something myself. So I do get uh, Lately, it’s been more and more younger folks who just don’t want to go into the corporate world and do that Now, how I do it is all one on one coaching on that one. I sit down with people, and franchising, first off, isn’t right, isn’t right for everybody. So I’m not here to convince them that franchising is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Um, it may be to them, it may not be to them. We will find out. So my method is to go about educating people on what franchising is all about on that one. I look at, where have you been? Where are you at? Where do you want to be five to 10 years from now? So then I get a good feel for what kind of skillset they bring, uh, into the picture so I can help find franchises that are, uh, looking for people just like them.
On that, I get to know who the franchisors are looking for in a successful franchisee. Now, all I need to know is from you, Kevin, is what skillset do you bring? That way I know which franchises are looking for people like you, and then I need to know your criteria. Or that. So it’s all one on one because I’ll ask a lot of in depth questions on that.
Not something I can do in a group session necessarily. I did write the book on that. I was quite surprised that it made it to the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. That was amazing. But it breaks down exactly the process that you and I will go through to not only find franchises that are a good fit for you, but then walk you through the process of investigating that franchise.
What to look for, what questions to ask. What kind of funding do you need? What kind of franchise attorney do you need? Um, so that way I can send that book out to whoever wanted it. You can buy it on Amazon if you want or just send me your address and I’ll send you a copy on that. But it’s really just about educating people what franchising is all about.
These are all questions that I get all the time about franchising. What it’s all about. So I just really wanted to educate people so they get a good feel for what it’s all about. And then, together, we look at it and we, as we go through the process, and I educate you on franchising, we meet, you know, seven, every seven to ten days as we’re going through the process.
We’ll find out if franchising is right for you to begin with. If it is, which franchise
[00:12:16] Kevin Stafford: is right for you. I really appreciate that so much. And I find that to be so common in so many coaches is how, how deeply committed they are to finding the right fit and how that’s, that’s like at the top near or at the very top of their priority list.
Like let’s figure out if this, if I’m the right coach for you, if what I’m coaching you in is right for you in this case, franchising, um, it’s just, it’s so, and it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s obvious you say it out loud and you’re like, Oh, duh, that’s common sense, but it’s so important to establish that. right from the jump.
Otherwise, you’ll be wasting both your time and energy and effort that could be better spent elsewhere. And then you get much faster. You arrive at the place where you where the real work begins. Very good point,
[00:13:01] Greg Mohr: Kevin. That’s exactly right. That’s what coaching is all about. I’m
[00:13:04] Kevin Stafford: with you on that one. Yeah, getting from the intention into the nitty gritty and the education and the action.
I love it. Yes,
[00:13:14] Greg Mohr: yeah, a lot of education there. A lot of education. I never push it. I never try and sell it. Let’s get you the information so you can make that informed decision one way or the other.
[00:13:24] Kevin Stafford: I really also, I’m fascinated by the story you told about the 23 year old who’s like, you know… I can already kind of tell this corporate ladder thing isn’t going to be for me.
And I feel like there’s at least, at least, well, at least anecdotally over the past couple of years, you’re hearing more people thinking about is what I’m doing or is the path I’m currently on. Right. Whereas, you know, for different generations, it kind of occurs at different times in your life. Sometimes you’ve got to, you know, take.
Five years, 10 years, 15 years to like kind of move along and you’re like, you’re not unhappy, but you know, you kind of have this, this nagging sensation that maybe there’s something else out there for you, or you develop skills, your personality involved. I mean, evolves, we are living creatures. We’re constantly growing and changing.
We become weirdly different people as we age, even though we are the same person all the time. It’s, it’s kind of funny how that works, but that’s a much bigger conversation maybe for another day. But yeah, I love that, that realization point and how that can. How that can happen just about anywhere and how it commonly for at least something like as as significant and as interesting as franchising tends to happen after someone’s tried a path for a while there’s also it’s like just to anybody who realizes they would like a little more autonomy, a little more control, a little more intention, a little to be able to put a little bit more of themselves into what they’re doing and also to get more out of it.
It’s a, it’s a very interesting option that I’m not sure enough. I’m not sure enough people talk about it. I was thinking I was going to say enough young people talk about it as an option, but I feel like it’s just, it’s such an interesting and fascinating option again, for the person with the right disposition and skillset to really, really make it shine.
[00:14:55] Greg Mohr: You know, that’s true. And a lot of people, when they think about franchising, Kevin, they just think about the ones that they see as they’re driving down the road on the, the brick and mortar franchise. They don’t realize that there’s a whole nother Avenue out there. The services industry that you don’t see, uh, you’re a brick and mortar.
You build it and they will come general theme. It’s right there in front of me. They see it services industry. Your clients don’t know you exist. Until they need you, so you get a good franchise system to drive people to you when the need arises on that restoration, electrical, plumbing, senior care, tutoring, home services, anything around the home that you can do, all of those are about 150, 000 investment, give or take on those, not a bad investment, franchises are going to give you enough territory to get you into a good six figure income, great business to get into, but a lot of people, like you said Kevin, just really don’t know.
Thank you. About all the options that are out there
[00:15:48] Kevin Stafford: for them. Yeah, it’s like, I’m, it’s, I, I barely understand. I, I know that there is such a larger world in franchising, but that, that’s where my knowledge stops. Like I, I can, I can sense that like vast ocean, but it’s like, Huh, I don’t really know a whole lot about that.
And you just rattled off all these industries that are either built on or infused with franchising. And it’s like, that’s. That’s just fascinating. I think, you know, honestly, like, once I’m, once I’m finished with my more professional responsibilities for the day, I think I might do a little, a little Wikipedia deep dive, and I might, well, honestly, I might just, you know, look up a little bit more about you and read about more what you have to say, and maybe I’ll, maybe I’ll check out that book.
I kind of want to keep, I’m like, I’m, I’m personally you. Just deeply, deeply curious about this entire thing, but we’re getting close to our time. So before I let you go, I want to give you a chance just to say, well, it’s another two part question because sometimes these are different. They’re usually aligned, but if anybody is half as curious as I am about franchising and what it’s like in 2023, what it’s been like over the last 40, 50 years and where it might be going in the future, basically, they want to get to know you and they want, they want to hear what you have to say.
Where can they. Learn more about you. Obviously we know where they can get the book, but where could they like, just learn more about who you are, what you do, how you do it, and also if it’s different, where can they best connect with you if they just, if they just want to start a conversation, if they’re like, I am, I am interested, let’s talk.
Should they DM you on LinkedIn? Should they go to your website and book a zoom call? How could they best connect with you?
[00:17:14] Greg Mohr: Go to my website, franchise maven. com. That’s franchise M A V as in Victor E N. com. Or Greg at FranchiseMaven. com or just pick up the phone and give me a call. 361 772 6401. If you got a lot of questions, give yourself a lot of time.
I’ll talk to you often. I’ll tell you all about it.
[00:17:34] Kevin Stafford: Answer anything you want. I love it. And especially to the younger members of our audience out there, phones still can be used to make phone calls. It’s true. It’s true. And it’s still like you connect pretty instantly. Um, I’d love to make that joke sometimes as I’m, you know, as a, as a middle aged man myself, I’m like, I still occasionally use the phone for phone calls.
Um, but yeah, I’ll put, I’ll put all of this, the, the website, the phone number, your email address, everything will be in the show notes. Um, Greg, thank you so much for spending some time today. And you really gave me, you gave me a lot to kind of spark my curiosity, got my, got my learning bug going. So I’m definitely gonna, gonna dive in and see what I can learn about franchising in the 21st century.
It’s just fascinating. And so I’m just grateful you spent some time with me today. This was, this was really fun. It
[00:18:18] Greg Mohr: was, Kevin. I appreciate you having me on the show. And as you were saying, where is it going in the next few years? Well, there’s a lot of people that, you know, a long time ago when people worked out in the fields and then the industrial revolution took place.
Everybody was moving into the cities to take over and to be a corporation because corporations taught them or treated them well and showed them a great path that are better than work in the fields. Well, after a while, that got kind of old. Uh corporations weren’t quite so friendly anymore So now we get a lot of people that are looking to get into franchise and getting into their own business They don’t have the next best thing in their head what to do.
So that’s
[00:18:52] Kevin Stafford: where franchise comes in. I love it another another opportunity To find your find your best life to pursue your passions and to be successful man this was okay I’m gonna I’m gonna have to rip the band aid off because I could feel myself just like I have more questions bubbling up and Again to the audience if you are feeling half as much curiosity and interest as I am do yourself the service Of connecting with Gregory of learning more about him and picking up the phone and chatting with him, if you’re really interested and thank you for listening.
Of course. We love that you’re here. Thank you again to you, Greg, for spending some time with me today. Um, I might just have to have you back on out of just pure, selfish curiosity, just cause I’ve enjoyed talking with you so much. And I feel like you have got one of the best brains to pick that I’ve talked to for the podcast.
So yeah, thank you. And yeah, maybe I’ll, maybe I’ll see you again sometime soon around the bend.
[00:19:42] Greg Mohr: I’m always here for you, Kevin. Anytime you’re ready, just let
[00:19:44] Kevin Stafford: me know and I’ll be there. Thank you, Greg, and thank you again to the audience. We will talk to you again very, very soon.
