Building a business that runs without you is the holy grail to gaining freedom.
Unfortunately, most owners never get there. They are unable to give up control without the house burning down.
Six years ago I was working 60-70 hour weeks.
Today I’m completely removed from the day-to-day operations of our 33-store, $43M sales-per-year Midas operation.
I’ve been very intentional about replacing myself.
Intentional about identifying what tasks I could hand off. Intentional about building a business big enough to support the payroll of building a high-quality team.
It won’t happen overnight but you can build one day at a time.
The People Business
Every franchise is the people business that just happens to __ (fix cars, paint houses, make burgers)
It’s the people that make a business successful.
This is how we can buy a franchise that’s only making $6-8k per month profit and increase it to $20-25k per month within 6 months.
It’s the same brand, products, services, building, equipment, & advertising. Sometimes it’s even the SAME people!
The difference is the leadership. People want to be led. They want to be inspired to be part of a bigger plan that’s more important than ourselves.
Building The Team
Your team is everything: they accelerate growth, increase profits, build freedom, and ultimately maximize your exit.
Every big decision should be centered around the question:
Does this make my team stronger?
The goal is simple: build a stable, long-tenured team of A-Players. The difference between an A-player and B/C Players isn’t incremental—they are 10X better.
A-Players instantly turn the lights on (not a muscle that takes years to build).
We’ve had a store go from $50k/month in sales to $125k the next month. We had a location double sales from $1M to $2M the next year.
Developing Leaders From Within
It’s hard to hire A-Players — really hard.
They aren’t sitting in their pajamas scrolling through Indeed on a Tuesday afternoon covered in Cheetos. They are currently employed and probably making good money.
We’ve been burned many times by hiring someone who appears to be an A-Player. They have a great resume. They say all the right things. They have raving reviews from references.
All the perfect ingredients and then…. they flop.
A much better approach is to develop leaders from within.
Find people with all the traits of an A-Player who don’t have experience yet. They are driven to win. They are highly accountable and reliable. They are team players and do excellent work.
Create a path for them to grow.
Help them set personal & professional goals. Start to expand their role by giving them more responsibility. Design a compensation plan to reward performance and recognize their achievements.
Invest in growth through training and development programs to expand their technical, management, and leadership skills.
This has been a huge focus for us in 2024 and it’s paying off.
Cheers!
P.S. I’m on a mission to become the #1 franchise educator on YouTube.
I release new videos every Sunday & Wednesday delivering insider tips, tricks, & strategies to build a franchise empire.
