The Mag
Please join me in welcoming the broadcast CEO and Founder with Premium Service Brands Mr. Paul Flick. Good morning, Sir.
Paul Flick
Good morning. Thanks for having me.
The Mag
Well, Paul, before we get too far into things tell us about Premium Service Brands, how are you serving folks?
Paul Flick
Sure. So, Premium Service Brands is a holding company for six individual franchise systems all in the home service industry, from painting to garage doors, handyman, kitchen organization, wood, and concrete restoration, and then maid services Well, a wide range of services to the home.
The Mag
Now how did this start? Did you start with one of them and just kind of organically evolved into the other services?
Paul Flick
Yes, correct. So, I started with 360 Painting, back in late 2006. And then, from there, I organically started to other franchise systems, which is handyman Pro, and pro lift garage doors. And then we've done three acquisitions as well, which has Maid Right was our first one. The second one was Kitchen Wise. And the most recent one is the Renewed Crew. So, it's been a combination of organic growth and then growth through acquisition as well.
The Mag
Now when you started in the business, did you always think that this is going to be a franchise Empire you're building, or was it just like, hey, let me just get this painting thing going?
Paul Flick
No, I always had the vision of having multiple franchise brands, with the same end-user. So, it was painting, I knew painting. I knew franchise, franchising at the time, but always had the vision that wanted multiple brands. So, we could scale and leverage our end-user, which is a middle to upper income, the single-family homeowner. And once we had one service we are providing to that end-user, we're able to provide them additional services by cross-selling and marketing to them.
The Mag
So, once you've cracked the code on how to reach and serve this homeowner, then all these c services just organically make sense. It's just part of the evolution of your company?
Paul Flick
Exactly. So, if we happen to be painting your house, then you're somebody who will outsource and hire companies to provide services on your home. So, if we've got a happy customer that's being serviced by 360 painting, that's typically a customer that's going to have another company, clean their house, or do handyman work around their house. So, we're able to, you know, leverage that customer from one service and cross-market and sell to them the other services within our brands.
The Mag
And then that lowers the acquisition cost of a customer for the other brands.
Paul Flick
Absolutely. There's really no additional cost you know, to get another service, so that does bring down your customer acquisition cost. Absolutely.
The Mag
And then for you as kind of the Empire Builder, are you looking always for these complimentary services? Like I don't see like landscaping or pool? Like are you looking for those other kinds of maybe emerging franchises in those spaces so that you can add them to your portfolio?
Paul Flick
Yes, always. So, we have two right now that we're looking at. We just completed as I said, renewed crew. Three weeks ago, on October 1 we did kitchen wise, so we won't do anything immediately. But we do have two that we're looking at, that we could possibly bring into the fold in quarter two.
The Mag
Now for you when you're looking for a franchise When you first started, is it different now? Now that you have all these other brands. Are you looking for someone that's going to say, okay, maybe I'll start with one, but I'm gonna eventually get two or three more complementary brands as part of the kind of empire they're building in their local market?
Paul Flick
Yeah, no question we're looking for, you know, Empire builders, people that are well-capitalized, good skill set, you know, through organization communication skills. And instead of them coming in and say buying, you know, two or three territories of 360 painting, what I want them to do is share my vision of buy one territory of 360 painting, then, you know, buy a territory, which is identical for maid Right. And then kitchen wise and handyman pro and start stacking them versus going wide and being able to reduce your customer acquisition costs by leveraging that end user.
The Mag
Now, is their person that they're hiring gun to the boots on the ground to do the work, is that same painter, the handyman, like, are you able to use kind of the same? So, these are totally, those employees are totally different.
Paul Flick
Yeah, they are in either. Some of them are employees, some of them are 1099. contractors. But they are different, they're very specific to their skill. So, we've got, you know, cleaners that are just cleaning homes, we've got painters that just paint homes, handyman, people that are doing the electrical, or the plumbing or installation of flooring, that's a specific crew as well.
The Mag
Now, when you're kind of prospecting for the ideal franchisee candidate, how are they revealing themselves to you? Is it like, what's the profile of that person?
Paul Flick
Somebody who's been middle to upper management, you know, probably for the last 20, 25 years, you know, capital and a skill set for them to properly market the territory, and obviously be able to drive the business and drive revenue by managing the other crews that they have.
The Mag
So if these people, are they in typical white-collar professions?
Paul Flick
Absolutely, yeah, I would say 95% of all of our franchise partners have come from a white-collar management background.
The Mag
Now, how does your training work in terms of getting somebody that's been around an ecosystem of white-collar folks to get more of the blue-collar folks that are doing the actual labor in their market?
Paul Flick
Yeah, so we've got four weeks of training, whenever we have a new franchise partner come on board, the first week is what we call onboarding. They're introduced to our vendor partners; they're obviously getting onboarded onto our software platform. And things like career plug is one vendor partner that we use to, you know, get those blue-collar workers. As well as leveraging our vendor partners, they know, you know, the painters that are looking for work, they know, the garage door technicians. So, we really leverage our vendor partner, then we have two weeks of virtual training, which encompasses marketing, sales, recruiting, and then we have one week of classroom training at our head office in Charlottesville, Virginia. So, there's a total of four weeks of training. So, they're properly prepared business plan done, recruiting plan budgets, revenue and sales goals, and then they're ready to execute at the local level after that.
The Mag
Now, what's the biggest mental shift they have to go through when they are coming from this kind of sometimes, you know, they're the big brand, they work for a big company that with a, you know, a logo that the world may know, and then they're going into this and they're kind of Bob, the, you know, the painting guy? And how do you help them make that shift to the kind of reposition themselves in order to serve their local market?
Paul Flick
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think, you know, if you're talking about a brand that's been recognized by the world, or, you know, by the community, whether that's Coca Cola, and IBM, etc., when they step out of that, they don't have that structure. And I think that's their biggest fear, you know because those big companies have a lot of structure around them. So, we built a lot of structure in all of our brands, whether that's driven by software, whether that's a franchise coach that they can talk to, or the four weeks of training. So, once they get in and they see the structure that's around them, that that that that is what they're looking for because that's what they came from. But there's a lot of fear before getting into you know, getting that feeling that there is structure around me and support.
The Mag
Now, what about the maybe, maybe it's another real concern, but it's a concern that they might have of going from, hey, this is a high prestige I work for like you said, IBM or Coca Cola. And now I'm the painter like that status shift. How do you help them manage that?
Paul Flick
Yeah, you know, as far as they're not the painter, like, we're not looking for somebody that wants to get up on the ladder and swing your brush, we want them working on the business, not in it. And we always equate it to what they really are, is a sales and marketing company. And the service, they happen to be providing this painting or maid service. So, we, I get why some people look at and go, oh, 360 Painting, I don't want to paint. But that's not what they're doing. There, they're managing crews, they're executing their marketing plan, you know, they're dealing with customers. So, I guess, once you get an opportunity to talk with them, that perception changes.
The Mag
And then do you get these leads? Are they primarily nowadays? I would imagine through the internet, or do you use franchise brokers? Like, how does that person get on your radar?
Paul Flick
Yeah, a combination of both. We are definitely, in most of the broker systems will prey on a choice friend at FCC. But then we also have our own campaigns where we get in the franchise prospects direct through our website as well.
The Mag
And then, has anyone cracked the code on making good franchise candidates bubble up? I talked to a lot of franchisors and that just seems to be something that it's a challenge.
Paul Flick
What do you mean bubble up?
The Mag
Well, I guess like have your pipeline is filled as you'd like him to be?
Paul Flick
Over prospects.
The Mag
Right for franchisee prospects.
Paul Flick
Oh, I mean, you know, we've got currently five franchise development, executives with the company, selling all six of our brands, we could always be busier. But we've got a great pipeline. And I think I attribute that a lot too, you know, half the successful franchise partners out there that have a good validation. And, you know, we've got a good reputation for success with franchise candidates.
The Mag
And then, when you started this, you started with one brand, and with an eye on multiple is the vision going as you anticipated?
Paul Flick
It is, you know, obviously, when I started with 360 painting, it was in late 06. And then, you know, we had the single biggest downturn since the Great Depression economically. And so that's slowed sort of my vision. But, you know, since 2015, when we started Prolift, Garage doors, you know, it's moved fairly rapidly over the last four or five years, going from really one brand now to six brands. So now it is sort of back on track.
The Mag
Now, any advice for a person that's an emerging franchisor? And they're thinking about expanding their brand? Do you this complimentary multiple brand strategy seems to have legs for your group? Is that something that somebody should consider?
Paul Flick
Well, I think it's great you know, I, I think what you can leverage and scale by having multiple brands, versus a single, you know, brand, there's a lot of opportunity for synergies and in becoming more efficient. So, I think it's a great business model, obviously, I wouldn't be doing that. But it requires, you know, a lot of capital to put something like this in place.
The Mag
When you're building the brand, and the persona of the person who uses it did so do you kind of have a brand manager for each brand that somebody is kind of looking over, and, you know, protecting each brand individually.
Paul Flick
We do yeah, we have, we call them brand leads. And then we have franchise coaches that are specific to those brands. So, what we have is premium service brands become a shared entity for marketing, for technology, for accounting for legal. And but the individual brands have brand needs individual coaches within the brands that are specific to those brands and industries.
The Mag
So, you're treating each one kind of as a unique entity in terms of they have a certain way of doing what they do individually. And you just are able to kind of consolidate some of the operations staff that they all share. Yeah. Right. So then, exactly, that coach might be the expert in garage doors, and to help you get your garage door business going. And you know, the handyman guy might be a little different because that's a different way of doing things.
Paul Flick
You've got a little different you know, with each brand but there's a lot of overlap in terms of the marketing, terms of the software, all of our brands are on the same platform. So, you, you're able to leverage training, legal marketing, and you're able to share, you know, if something's working in 360, painting marketing-wise, then I want to be able to share those best practices with kitchen wise, so we get a lot of leverage and synergies and best practices out of the shared resources of premium service brands.
The Mag
And also from the franchisee standpoint, I would imagine it makes their job simpler because they don't have to learn new software for the made company or new accounting for the painting. Like it's all under the same kind of roof.
Paul Flick
That's correct. And then we give them the functionality to where they can do their own drip email campaigns, to those customers, if they have multiple brands.
The Mag
So how many brands do you think you're gonna end up with when you're closer to the end of the story?
Paul Flick
I don't know when the story's over. You know, I would like to see somewhere between 12 and 15. But I want to make sure that they are complimentary that they have the same end-user. And I want to make sure that we're, you know, managing our growth and not stretching ourselves too thin as well. So, 12 to 15. Probably, you know, in the next 5 to 10 years.
The Mag
Good stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. And congratulations on all the growth and, and success.
Paul Flick
Well, I appreciate your time. And thanks for having me. And I hope you have a great weekend.
The Mag
Now if somebody wanted to learn more about any of the brands, is there a website that kind of given gives them the lay of the land of your whole empire?
Paul Flick
Yeah, I think the best place to go would be premium service brands, plural premiumservicebrands.com.
The Mag
Paul, thank you so much for sharing your story.
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