The Mag
Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast. President of Gotcha Covered Franchising LLC, Mr. Paul Linenberg, how are you, Paul?
Paul Linenberg
Oh, gosh, I'm fantastic. A pleasure to be with you guys today. And it's a crazy and very challenging environment. And once in a lifetime, I'm sure.
The Mag
Hopefully, that is true, Paul. Well, about Gotcha Covered how are you serving folks?
Paul Linenberg
Well, sure. So we are, our franchise owners sell custom window treatments, blinds, shutters, and shades to homeowners and businesses in their area. And most of our folks are home-based, although we do have some that do have retail storefronts. So this has really changed how we do things substantially, at least in the short term, by kind of compelling us to move to what we're calling and many others are calling virtual consultations. So, we have now educated our franchise owners on how to do that the technology to use the process, the third-party technology that they can leverage all those kinds of tools to help us be productive in this environment.
Because the reality is that people are still doing business, they want to do things, maybe even more. So now because now they have a little bit more time on their hands are sitting at home, starting up the regular window treatments and saying, gotta go, who can help me out even today, we've had people that have had their vacations canceled. And so now suddenly, they have a pool of funds that they reallocate toward home improvement projects, such as window treatments. So, we're really trying to do what we can to help our franchise owners and serve our community in these times of lockdown.
The Mag
Now, previously, prior to the situation that we're dealing with, now, the way that it would work with somebody said, hey, I'm interested in window treatments, and then one of your people would come and physically go to their house, I guess, and show them a book or some samples and materials and say, hey, these are your choices. And now you're saying that because of the circumstance and the social distancing, that’s happening kind of virtually at this point.
Paul Linenberg
That's right. That's right. That's exactly how our regular model works. And so now we are just going virtual. So, with zoom or any, we're I FaceTime or whatever the homeowner is comfortable with, we can leverage whatever technology they like, and just have that virtual appointment, we still have the sample books, we can still hold them up on a video camera and say, hey, here's what we're talking about here, we can help the homeowner give us rough measurements. So, we can actually come up with a quote, we would want to do final measurements to make sure that we're exactly an eighth of an inch so that they want to trim treatments that properly.
But the limitation, the only thing that really is a downside now is that they can't touch and feel the samples and see the fabrics. So, what we've done there is we've arranged, and this has been in place, but we can actually order swatches and product samples to be sent directly to the homeowner. Even in this environment, our manufacturers are for the most part up and running or have inventory they can they're trying to be still in business as much as they can possibly be. So, it's a different way of doing it. But the results are very similar to what they would be in a normal environment.
The Mag
And this might open up some opportunities for future right like this, this might This is the new normal today, but it also might transfer to down the road that this is another kind of channel for you guys to explore and how to deal with customers.
Paul Linenberg
Yeah, for sure. We do see this as a silver lining. And in the application for this. I think that still, most people would want to have that touch, feel and then look into the eyes of the person that's going to provide the service and products but there's going to be situations and maybe you're across town and if there's a lot of traffic or someone's child falls ill that That day and so you know instead of canceling that appointment he let's just switch to a virtual consultation we can make progress you know so I do believe that that will become a permanent part of how we do business and how so many other companies do business as well.
The Mag
Right, it may not be your plan A but it might be A and B.
Paul Linenberg
Yeah, exactly, and then we do have our franchise owners because of the way we have our territories you can sell anywhere that you're referred you're not limited to just your territory so you may have a friend across the state across the country well now that we have some expertise we have you know, some track record in this now I think our franchise owners or their eyes are going to be open about hey, I can sell window treatments to my folks who are back you know, in Michigan or whatever and it can really turn out very well. So yeah, another sort of opportunity he has, has exposed itself and then you know, all this turmoil
The Mag
right, this is you know, this what I think is great about our country is that we're very resourceful there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there and creative people that are good at problem-solving. And you know, they see themselves in this situation they're figuring they're not saying okay, I quit I'm out there saying what do I have to do to make this work? And I think a lot of that.
Paul Linenberg
Yeah, cuz it's gonna happen to a better country we do have the creativity and the drive and the energy to make this work you know, we're gonna get through this pretty quickly and be on the other side of it and, and there's going to be a lot of, you know, permanent improvements on a lot of things in the way we did business, and the way we acted as consumers, so I couldn't agree with you more.
The Mag
Now, we've been having the privilege to speak to a lot of their business people and a lot of franchisors out there. Are you seeing because there is a lot of people getting losing their jobs or being furloughed? What are you finding that an unintended consequence for you is that a lot of franchisees are kind of or potential franchisees are popping up now and saying, Hey, you know what, I'm tired of this kind of roller coaster let me get in control of my own situation. Let me explore Gotcha Covered.
Paul Linenberg
Yeah, we're just starting to see that, and I think that we will see that more and more over time. We have seen people drop out of you know, the due diligence period because they are they have lost their job or their spouse house or they're just concerned but very happy to report as you just suggested that people are coming in and they're saying hey, this is an amazing opportunity to get into business ownership. I've just learned the hard way that my job really isn't that secure and you know, this is unprecedented and hopefully again, we never see this again, but things can happen beyond the control so any employee that's out there that feels like they're safe and secure and we've seen this over the years and years that you know all of a sudden somebody changes up at the top and guess what a whole division has gone so yeah, this will be a good opportunity for people to jump into business ownership and really I believe that on the other end of this you know, assuming that the government really gets the money flowing pretty quickly, I see this as more of a bump in a road than a deep pothole that we're gonna really have to dig ourselves out of.
The Mag
Yeah, I agree. What does the ideal franchisee look like what’s a good fit for your system?
Paul Linenberg
Yeah, gosh, we, you know, we say that we, you know, anybody is anybody's a good candidate, you don't have to have any particular expertise, expertise, I think the two sort of stereotypes is that you need to be designer, or you need to be handy with a hammer and neither one of those are true. So, we literally have people that have been home Homemakers, we have teachers, Wall Street people, the level executives, really comes down to work ethic and there is this is a very highly referral kind of a business so the more someone is good at and like building relationships both with marketing partners, and customers, they're just going to be an easier fit for them. But as long as you bring a work ethic, ability to get along with others and the drive and you know they sometimes the things that are hard to hard to define all those things, we can train you we can teach you how to be successful within Gotcha Covered.
We're equally split. We're about half male, half female, we about 40% of our owners are spouses, so partners, husbands, wives, who have you know, you the typical profile is at one of them has, the kids are gone, or for whatever reason, life changes and now they say that they're ready to start the new business. So, the one spouse is working, the other spouse, spouse, the spouse comes and joins the business. And then after they're up and running for a little bit then the spouse that was working Usually, really, really excited to leave her job and to join their spouse working in the business. And then it becomes a typically a husband-and-wife scenario that works really, really well. It's a great income business, but it's a great lifestyle business as well.
The Mag
Right? Because I would imagine, there's a lot of flexibility with this franchise
Paul Linenberg
Very much. Yeah. And it's funny that we see, when it is spouses working together, what we see is there are two varieties. One is that the spouses want to do every single thing together. And then the other one is, they don't want to do anything to get it completely, you want to divide, and conquer because they find that working too closely together, is more stressful. So, it's just funny as the franchisor, to be able to see the variety of, you know, how spouses really like working together.
The Mag
Right? You get to see the family dynamics in action.
Paul Linenberg
Good and bad.
The Mag
Now talk about the kind of the genesis of the idea, did it? Did it start out with the founders as saying, you know what, this is something we're going to franchise, or did it start at something like, hey, this is an interesting business? Let me just see what I can do individually. And then it grew into franchising.
Paul Linenberg
Yeah, so I was not a founder, but our founder Vicky Osha was actually in software. And he and some people that he knew got involved in developing a very rudimentary at the time, this is decades ago. window treatment design software program and they built it up and they, you know, tried to sell it to the trade. And eventually, the dawned on that, hey, we have something pretty cool here we can franchise around this make this our point of separation.
So, we've really always had technology in our DNA, and you can see from her annual investment, but also in the platform that we've developed to help our franchise owners, we started out calling it a CRM, but now it's so much more we just renamed it we now call it Gotcha linked. But it's a scram. As lead management. It's quoting, it's proposing its integration with QuickBooks, we're pulling leads into it, all kinds of stuff. And one of the things we just did in response to this current situation in the virtual consultations is we plugged in a sale design tool that we had also built alongside. And now our franchise owners can send this virtual sale to, their homeowners, virtually, so that homeowners can get a link. And they can go online, they can look at hundreds of great-looking photos or window treatments, they can sort by design style, and product, and room, and they can save their favorites.
And then those favorites, go back to the franchise owner so they understand and can see what that homeowner is interested in so that when they have that appointment, they have a really good place to start. They can say hey, I can tell it to you like shutters, for example. So, let's start there. So, we really tried to, you know, it's been all hands on deck, we, we've shifted away from our normal priorities, trying to balance Hey, let's try to do business as usual as much as we can, but where we should and where we have to. Let's pivot and let's break away from our, our development path or technology development path. And let's focus on those things that we can adapt and get out into our franchise owners very quickly and inexpensively. So, that actually has an impact on their businesses right now. And so that's kind of been the focus for the last several weeks.
The Mag
So now, how are you kind of helping the franchisee deal with the stress of this for a lot of these franchisees? They're not they haven't been business owners during this crisis. They've been maybe employees in another organization, but they haven't been kind of the one that's responsible. How do you kind of counsel? Are you doing a kind of regular check-ins? Are there more kinds of office hours he like calls where people can kind of share what's going on in their market and share some best practices, but just to help them kind of mentally a strong? How are you helping someone?
Paul Linenberg
Yeah. Well, we have the, I don't know if it's an advantage of having been through the great recession of 2008. And that was a dreadful time. And it was a time of diminishment in all, our business and so many others. So, we've seen this before, and we've communicated that to our franchise owners, and it's been just a constant stream of communication, to let them know that we understand what this is. We've seen it before. Here's what we're doing. Here are some positive things. You know, we want to balance between being empathetic and positive. We want to, we don't want to overact we don't want to underact. So, shifting our resources into not just the technology but the marketing, getting more Facebook sources in their hands very quickly, more product information. We're doing, for example, a webinar next week about how to take great pictures with your cell phone.
And we have put aside a pool of funds that is going to call it a stimulus package for lack of a better term. And that is a pool we set aside to help our owners who are struggling, those that have already been struggling more than others, those that are just new in the business, those who haven't really been able to build up the reserves and strong business yet. And we're sort of allowing them to apply for funds from this pool that will defer their royalties and down the road so that they can we can all get through this, we can have some relief on a cash flow, we've also been just really encouraging them to take advantage of the government financial assistance because I think that that is the way through all of this is you know, you can only preserve expenses so much you have to generate revenue, and those government programs are the way to generate revenue to get us through this.
The Mag
Yeah, I think that's going to be some relief that all small, midsize businesses desperately need at this time. Just I agree with you that we're gonna get through this. And this will be we look back; we're going to realize that it's probably not going to be as bad as everybody initially thought it was. And it is going to be a bump in the road, not, you know, the Grand Canyon there.
Paul Linenberg
Yeah. 100%.
The Mag
So now, how are you? So, from a growth standpoint, I'm sure everybody's numbers are kind of not where they'd like them to be. But it sounds like that you're kind of net positive in the sense that maybe some people that were considering this have put that on pause just based on their own individual financial situation, but you are getting new people that maybe hadn't considered or weren't really ready to pull the trigger or getting closer to pulling the trigger because of their new circumstances.
Paul Linenberg
Yeah, and I think we're a few weeks out from really seeing how that balances. But one of the things I'm really very pleased about is that people that were in the process, deep into it, they've stayed with a commitment, I just had an onboarding call with one of our new owners who's coming to training in May, which is now virtual, we would, of course, have that in personnel with virtual. And she just said, you know, hey, I really believe this is a great time to get into business because I know that this is going to be temporary. And my opportunities on the other side are going to be tremendous, in just raising the hairs on my arms, it was just so great gratifying to hear that kind of approach and philosophy to this business.
So, I think the more people that adopt that, and of course, we're honored to have her as part of Gotcha Covered because we love business owners like that. But I do think that a little bit less employment overall helps franchising in general, because there's more people that are not wanting to go back to corporate, which we've been competing against for a couple of years, thanks to a very, very strong economy. So yeah, what we'll see, you know, our goal is to grow responsibly, we want to add very high caliber people to our system that are going to appreciate what we do in our culture and be successful and, and we'll do that with the right people and however many that is that that's what it is. But I do think, as you guys said, I, again, agree with you 100%, this is a bump in the road, we're gonna get through this. And you know, good times on the other side of this.
The Mag
So now, as part of the sales and marketing resources, you provide for the franchisees, how much of it is the kind of having to network and work for their local community and be kind of a good corporate citizen locally in order to keep that brand ubiquity. So, when people do consider this, they consider them how much is their responsibility? How much do you provide? Is that change now during this crisis?
Paul Linenberg
Yeah, it's a savvy, savvy question and speaks to really the heart of gotcha covered in many others. Because our fundamental marketing strategy is community-based marketing. So, our approach with anything is to give them the tools to do what they can do. And then we automate we provide all the resources that we can do so we're, we're pushing out content from the corporate side, both with Facebook and Instagram, but also LinkedIn now and Google My Business and that's all good and its corporate stuff, but it's that that last mile, it's not that final touch that that owner has to be I mean, we feel like we're co-branded here. The franchise owner is the face of Gotcha Covered in their marketplace and we're happy with that because that's how it works.
This is a referral business. So, what we do is we provide them training you know, we show them hey, what you have to do this, but here's how to do that. And here are the tools and resources we've laid them out. For your posting, go here, grab this, go here, grab a picture, and bam you have you know, that's you’re posting. So, it is really a very integrated approach. That has to come from both corporate and the franchise owners and of course, they can't be out in the community we would be saying shoe-leather marketing right now but there's no shoe leather going on right now so it's we're just encouraging him to be to do that digitally and be more active on social media because the homeowners are sitting around like they're spending a whole lot more time on social media so it's a good time to get in front of many more homeowners.
The Mag
Now if somebody wanted to learn more and have a more substantive conversation, is there a website for potential franchisees and or consumers that just say it's time to get some new windows treatment?
Paul Linenberg
Absolutely, absolutely. And thanks for asking. Yeah, sure. If you're interested in window treatments, it's gotchacovered.com if you're interested in possibly a franchise or learning more about it at least it's gotchacoveredfranchising.com again gotchacovered.com and gotchacoveredfranchising.com and just go there are now you can and hit the submit button and we'll get back to you and start some dialogue and get some information in front of you.
The Mag
Well, Paul, thank you so much for sharing your story, and best of luck in the future.
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