He Built a $3.5M Business in 15 Minutes a Week

This is a transcript from Episode 42 of The Franchise Champion Show.

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Alan Regala: Matt stumbled into franchising almost by accident, building it to solve his own problem first, and Tammy left the top of a completely different world to help him grow it. They're in the middle of figuring it out all in real time, and that's exactly why I wanted to get them on now. Matt, Tammy, welcome to the show.

Matt Martin: Thanks for having us.

Tammy Romage: Thank you, Alan.

Alan: I'm super excited to speak with you and have you guys on the show, your new brand, and I really wanted to dive in and learn more about it and help educate others on your brand as well. So before we dive into Satellite Teams, Matt, let's start with you. What were you doing and how did you end up building this into a franchise?

Matt: So just a quick background, I'm sort of a serial entrepreneur, deal junkie. I've been involved in a whole variety of different industries, lots of different businesses. Whenever I get a little too much time on my hands, I start another company. It's sort of a problem, but not really.

Alan: We all have our vices.

Matt: So entrepreneurship has always been something I've been passionate about, and in call it 2019, I was running four different businesses at the time in various different industries, but I really found the need to find a way to crack leveraging offshore in a way that I liked, the way that I wanted it, the way that I thought it would work. I tried a variety of other strategies, business process outsourcing, freelancers, etc., and just couldn't find the right fit for what I wanted and what I needed for our businesses.

I was running a variety of different businesses in various different industries. A tech business, subprime auto platforms where we buy subprime auto loans, a company that cleans up foreclosed houses for the federal government and banks. So a variety of different industries, and I really found the need to find a way to leverage offshore resources the way that I wanted it. I tried business process outsourcing, tried leveraging freelancers, and couldn't make it work for a variety of reasons. So I said, I'm just going to build a better mousetrap for myself. Satellite initially was never meant to serve anyone else.

Just to further the origin story, I'm part of an organization called YPO, Young Presidents Organization. It's essentially other business owners and executives, and there are small groups that meet every month. I met with my small group and said, I'm going to try to move this one function offshore, and they thought I was crazy to start. I did that the first month. The second month I moved customer service, customer success. By the third month, they thought I needed to be committed, when I said I was going to move finance overseas, and they thought I was absolutely crazy. By the fourth month, it became a function of, okay, so it's really working. No one stole all your money. And you were able to reduce your expenditure by how much. By the end of that meeting, they're like, hold on a second, can you teach me how to do this too? How does this work? Help me in my business.

So again, Satellite Teams in general was never meant to be for anyone else. I built it how I wanted, which really, I got a lot of scratches and gray hair and bruises from figuring it out, if you will. But I figured out the mousetrap the way that I would want it, and the way that I thought, as others engaged with me, of helping build it for them. I got to experience a ton of different industries, supporting companies of lots of different sizes and levels of complexity.

Satellite Teams sort of evolved organically from there. We ended up getting into franchising really because this is so much of a relational business. This is not a marketing driven business whatsoever. 85% of our clients had never leveraged or worked with offshore resources before working with us. So it's very much like we're holding someone's hand, helping them architect their workforce design, trying to figure out what's strategic, what do you need to keep internally. What's your special sauce as an organization? If it's not special sauce, try and find somebody else to do it. Don't spend time on it.

So that's what led us to franchising. We have a ton, millions and millions of dollars we're investing in the infrastructure, in terms of legal entities, technology, really to allow people, a company can hire ten people in ten different countries through us and still deal with a single invoice that they pay. They're not dealing with currency forex, trying to figure out how to pay a rice allowance in the Philippines or an aguinaldo in Mexico. We handle all that for them. So an incredible amount of infrastructure that you need in place anyway. And so what we found was allowing other entrepreneurs to be able to leverage their relationships and create value for both themselves as well as their clients, this is very much more of a relational business. And that's where we led to franchising.

So where we are today, a bunch of amazing people that are franchise owners from all kinds of different backgrounds and walks of life. Everything from being the CEO of a bank, to running a university healthcare system, to being a private equity backed CEO of a golf apparel company. So it's like these folks are from all sorts of different walks of life. They have connectivity with all kinds of different folks and understand different industries, different markets. But they're all still able to leverage our technology, our platform, our infrastructure, and not have to recreate it. So that's what led us to franchising.

Alan: Got it, got it, got it. And so just to be very clear with our audience here, tell us succinctly, what's the pain point that you solve for your clients, or your franchisees solve for their clients, and how do you impact the lives of those clients, those businesses?

Matt: So I think the first thing to start with is just making sure it's clear, functionally, what we do. When a client comes to us, what do we really do? When it comes down to it, we act as an international recruiter, no different than a recruitment firm would in the US or Canada or wherever it is. So we are a recruiter, and then subsequently we're like an international ADP or Paychex. So think about it from that perspective. We are what's called an employer of record, or think about it as like a PEO.

So a client can come to us and have different business needs, and we help them architect, okay, where, based on those business needs, your budget, language requirements, time requirements, really a lot of the soft skills, like where's the right country, where are you going to have the highest likelihood of success for placing that specific role. We then go and delve really deep into really defining what the role is. What we find is so many companies are lazy about really defining what success looks like, and so we really help our clients figure out what that is. What does success look like for this role, what are the KPIs, who's the person going to report to, whether or not this position is bonus or not, and if it is, what would be the makeup of that bonus. Because incentive compensation drives behavior, so we try to help people think through that a little bit more in depth.

From there, we'll help them identify which country to go into. We're going to recruit inside that country, so we have recruiters across the planet that know how to go find amazing rock star talent in all these different countries. Once the client decides who they'd like to hire, we then act as that international Paychex or ADP, if you will. So the client pays us, and they can have ten candidates or ten employees, if you will, in ten different countries. We are managing all of the HR compliance, payroll, benefits administration, PTO, compliance, commissions, literally anything as it relates to not functionally doing the day to day activity of the work, all of that HR related activity we're handling on their behalf, as well as processing payroll, benefits, taxes, reporting, etc.

Alan: Got it, got it, that makes sense, that makes sense. I love it, I love it. It sounds like you're providing a great, essentially recruiting service for companies that want to expand their teams and save money at the same time. Does that sound about right?

Matt: Totally. I mean, the vast majority of clients come to us because they're looking to find ways to expand their team and save money. But there's also huge talent gaps where we're able to help solve as well. I'll give two examples. The public accounting space is an example. There's far more people aging out of that space than getting into it, so there's a huge talent gap in public accounting. When you think about real estate appraisers, same type of dynamic, a huge amount of people aging out of that industry than getting into it. So it's not just a function of, can I find cheaper places where the cost of living is simply less. There's still rock star, amazingly smart folks, but there are plenty of industries that have a massive talent vacuum, and so they have to look outside of the US in order to fulfill that as well.

Alan: Got it, got it. Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. Tammy, let's hear from you. I would love to hear a little bit about your background and then how you got involved in all this.

Tammy: Absolutely. But simply, how are we the perfect employee on the other side of the world as if they were sitting next to you. That's simply what we do, we just take out all the complexity through our global infrastructure. And the best part is our owners sit in the middle, driving workforce expansion and revenue, so we're excited about that.

My background is totally different. I have nearly three decades in the global beauty business prior to being with Satellite Teams. And for me, what was always very important to me is helping others win. That's what I love to do the most. But within those last 27 years, I led sales organizations, developed leaders, created infrastructure, incentive programs, helped business owners simplify, scale, and win. What I love to do is detangle strategy, take something that might seem a little difficult, detangle the strategy and simplify the process so you have recurring revenue and are able to continue to scale and grow and build that way.

So yeah, I'm blessed that I get to work with our owners from the very beginning, in their first 30, 60, 90 days, and then on the way to having an enterprise value at the end. And so that's what I love, every day is like a new day because I get to sit at this table with all these brilliant, incredible owners. All of them come from different industries, have different backgrounds, but all of us know that the one piece that's important to our business is the relationships. It all goes back down to building relationships, building relationships with our clients, building relationships with our owners, and building relationships with each other.

Alan: Nice, I love it, I love it. All right, so you guys started franchising in January, right? Can you tell me, I guess, what year it was that you started the original corporate location, and then now, it's June, beginning of June right now, how many franchise owners do you have at this point?

Matt: So Satellite Teams is a world class global operating infrastructure, and we help US businesses place top tier remote employees all over the world, and we take away all the complexity behind it. We handle the HR, payroll compliance, all the legality that goes along with it, and actually help our clients save up to 70% of domestic hiring costs. And so our owners, as a franchisor, sit in the middle of this incredible infrastructure, but also our tech, our marketing, and then of course their revenue engine.

Alan: So how many franchisees do you guys have at this point?

Matt: We're five or six months in, seven today, and we've got another 20 or so in the pipeline. So we're growing quickly, having a lot of fun. We just entered into New Zealand. Next in the world will be Canada, and then the UK after that. So we're expanding, and we're focused on serving the English speaking market first, and then we'll move into the French speaking market after that. Alan, we're really excited about expanding globally.

Tammy: This is really, really exciting for us, because there's talented people all over the world, but just as our owners, and Matt described a little bit about some of them, who they are, our seven owners right now bring so much to the table of success, in this mastermind table, with all the different verticals, all of their experiences that they already have. So they're not really starting over as a franchise owner with Satellite Teams. They're starting from experience, and they're leveraging those relationships at the same time.

Alan: Okay, so this is interesting. I'm very curious to hear, most of the franchise brands I speak with are based in the US and really focused on the US, building that up first and then potentially expanding into other countries. Sounds like you guys are doing that pretty quickly. Can you tell me more about that strategy, and how you're growing this globally from the get go?

Matt: Sure. So having access to talent globally doesn't really change depending on where the client may stem from. There are other dynamics at play that also create opportunity. If you're a company based in London, it's very, very expensive to pay your bookkeeper in London. It's extremely expensive, and it's not just the expense side of it, it's also the labor and complexity associated with it. Some countries are extremely employee friendly, which makes that part difficult as an entrepreneur as well.

And so I mentioned solving the English speaking world first, but France is an example, you can have the world's worst employee ever in Paris and you can't fire them. It's very difficult. So leveraging the French speaking world, you can hire in Senegal, as an example, where you're not stuck into this almost lifelong employee employer relationship that's not working out, or toxic, and you're almost stuck in France.

And again, I don't mean to pick on France, but there's just certain places. Mexico, as well, is a very employee friendly market. So Mexican companies may actually end up hiring Colombians through us, as an example. It's not because all of a sudden it's so much cheaper from a labor perspective between Mexico and Colombia, it's a little cheaper in Colombia depending on the type of role, but the labor complexity is so much easier working with Colombia.

So there's all sorts of mismatches, right. When you think about the English speaking world, the cost to hire in the average salary sits pretty high up there across all of the different countries. So to the extent you have an English speaking common thread, these same solutions work anywhere, but the cost differential sometimes will change. Canada, from a labor perspective, is about 25% less than the US, so the savings isn't as much, but it's just as impactful, being able to leverage Satellite Teams members for a Canadian business as it is for a US business.

Canada tends to be more employee friendly, so it can make it more complex, so the savings aren't as much from a dollar for dollar perspective, but it's more complex. So there's all these avenues and angles where leveraging the same technology, the same underlying thesis, which is there are smart people all over the planet, companies just don't know how to access them, they don't know how to pay them, they don't know how to employ them. If you take all that out of the equation, the world gets much smaller very quickly, and there are lots of ways to thread the needle, if you will.

Alan: Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. I wouldn't even consider that one of the benefits is, obviously, cost is a benefit if a lower cost exists, but just the headache factor, and being able to have the right people on the team. I can imagine if you're in one of these countries that makes it difficult to release somebody from employment and you've got the wrong person on the team, that sounds like a disaster. So that's a huge benefit, I can definitely see that, that's very cool. So, this might be for Tammy, what does the growth of this franchise business look like? How does that work when you're looking to expand into so many countries really all at the same time? How does growth work?

Tammy: Honestly, that seems like a really dumb question, it's a simple question, but that's exactly what we all want, growth. I think growth starts from the very beginning, with our brand new owners as they come on board. So if we're talking about growing and expanding, I think it starts from the very beginning, on day zero, of working with our owners and helping them set incredible goals from the very beginning, milestones, walking them through all those first next steps.

One of the things we do with our owners is we have a real 4 to 5 day deep dive called immersion, and when they come to immersion, it's kind of when the math clicks, the ahas happen, but we really believe in actually activating them, not just working or listening in theory, but actually starting to grow and build. So we start to look at capital mapping, who do they know, what are the verticals, what industries do they already have connections in, and we help walk them through those processes. So by the time they leave immersion, they've already been inserted into the model, and it's not just theory, it's actually activating. So I think growth starts from the very beginning, when an owner first starts, in their very first 30, 60, 90 days, but then setting those goals for them as they go along. Our goal for our owners is 100 placements in their very first year, and we already have the infrastructure together so that they can follow the next best steps to be able to do that.

And the infrastructure that works here in the US will also work in Canada, will also work in the UK, will also work in Australia. It's the same infrastructure of our owners diving in and helping business owners alleviate some of the bottlenecks and the things that they have, and being able to help those owners place incredible, talented people from all over the world through Satellite Teams. That happens in so many different ways.

Alan: So you mentioned earlier, franchisees are not necessarily starting from zero, you said they're starting from experience. So tell me then about who your ideal franchise candidate is and what that experience looks like. What are the backgrounds of the people you have now, and what's that recipe for success?

Tammy: Well, all of them have very different experience, but all of them also have people experience, building relationships, and what they've already done. Matt did mention a few of them, but one had oversight over 13 laboratories, so her vertical would be more in healthcare, but it doesn't mean she can't expand to other verticals. All of our owners are very different in the experience they already have, some, this is their second bite of the apple, they've already had a career, like me, over 27 years in the global beauty business, and now we're ready to have a different focus, focus more on enterprise value, have a different lens, create that and additional income for their family at the same time.

So that's what our owners really are doing, they're out driving client relationships and workforce expansion, that's what they're doing. So it's a real relationship driven model, again, with recurring revenue, supported by our proven infrastructure.

Alan: So I imagine, the goal, obviously this is a B2B, so you're helping businesses, and we talk about this being a relationship business. Are your owners imagining forging relationships with other owners, trying to find them? If we just look at what our owners are doing on a day to day basis, is this a lot of networking? Tapping into their existing network, or can someone who wasn't a CEO, who doesn't have those same connections, build that over time through whatever your training is? What does that look like on a day to day basis?

Tammy: Well, their typical day is talking to business owners, other business owners, executives, operators, that's their typical day. They could be doing discovery conversations, looking at their workflow, talking to them about how they can help them solve those problems, out to dinner, over lunch or over coffee, being at conferences or associations, being a member of the Chamber of Commerce. All those ways that business owners connect every single day is how our business owners also connect.

So most of our owners come on board already with relationships in their pocket, they've already built relationships and are able to drive them. And then we also, through our immersion and different education, we talk about affiliate programs and really help our owners continue to increase that pipeline of relationships as they continue to grow and scale and build their business, affiliates and referrals, those are all the different ways. Matt would probably want to add a few things to that as well.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, I just like to call a spade a spade. This is definitely something where you'll be much more successful if you're coming with a relationship. If you've lived it, you've breathed it. Like one of our owners, if you've never had a $100 million IT project go completely sideways, in the middle of it, it's going to be very difficult for you to relate to someone else having that same problem. So not to say that's the one thing that happens all the time, but business owners need to be able to have a conversation with someone who they view credibly, who can talk the same language, who's had the same bruises, sort of worked through organizational dynamics and shifts and things along those lines.

I would just say this is not something for the 24 year old that has no experience and no business contacts. It's just not. Could we sit there if we wanted to run them through and have to just start them day one, sales 101? It's probably, we're not the right model for them. We're the right model for the executive that's looking to do their next thing. There's executives that have been in any industry, doesn't matter, our business is completely industry agnostic, position agnostic. We're helping clients place C level talent down to the most junior level and everything in between. But it's the ability to think through things, you're going to have a lot more success if you have that experience managing teams, managing organizations, having run a P&L or been responsible for a big chunk of one, things along those lines, you're just going to think differently.

Alan: Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, that's helpful, and it's helpful to know both who's a good candidate for this franchise and also who is not, that clearly differentiates and distinguishes the two, so that's helpful.

Quick pause. If you're thinking about what Matt just described, here's something useful. I'm a former franchise owner, 14 years, multi-million dollar exit. Now I help corporate professionals find the right franchise based on your goals, skills, and investment level. Then I match you with opportunities from over 600 brands and support you all the way through, and it's completely free. I'm only paid by franchisors if you decide to move forward with the right fit. If you're wondering if Satellite Teams or another franchise could work for you, go to Athletetoowner.com and book a 15 minute call. Now back to Matt and Tammy.

Alan: So you guys have seven franchisees now, you're in multiple countries, what do you see the growth trajectory looking like for the brand, what's your goal here?

Matt: World domination, of course.

Alan: Naturally, naturally, naturally. Come on, why would you get out of bed for anything less, right?

Matt: No, I mean, just from my private equity background, you look at the total addressable market, and it's just massive, it's so big, we're never going to scratch the surface of it in terms of being able to be the matchmaker plus the compliance, payroll, HR solution for the globe. No matter what number you say, you can go ten times bigger than that in a year or so. The opportunity is very, very large.

The focus, obviously, is identifying, so perfecting in the US, we have a lot of experience in the US understanding how that works, entering into the other English speaking countries to serve clients there, and then subsequently, like I mentioned, going into the French speaking countries. At the same time, we're spending time identifying where the really complex countries are. Mexico is very, very complex, so we're actually finding franchisees in Mexico that are Mexican, serving Mexican companies, with other Latin American Spanish speaking countries that are easier, less complex.

From there, the next would be solving any type of Germanic speaking countries, and trying to see if there's a cost arbitrage. We're spending time trying to figure out, there's actually a large German speaking population in the south of Brazil, so is there enough of that, are the skill sets right to be able to serve. You look at some of the most expensive places on the planet, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. So is there a big arbitrage if the language is right, can you make that work? I don't know, that's sort of like third inning. Right now we're focused on the US, English speaking countries, then French, and we'll figure out the other ones down the line.

But again, the technology is the same, it doesn't matter, the actual delivery, all companies on the entire planet need to do the same thing. If you're in business, you're focused on one equation, which is revenue minus expenses equals margin. It doesn't matter what you do, you're on that same thing, it doesn't matter what country you're in. So helping solve these systemic problems, really hone in on the opportunity, the market's just incredibly large.

Alan: Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about the support and the services you're providing for the owner. Obviously, in an ideal world, they're coming in with contacts, they're coming in with their own experience leading teams, managing, directing, being maybe an executive, and they're helping other owners or other executives. So they may have those relationships and can build them with their connections. Once they've identified the company and helped identify the gaps, what the company might need, what are the tools you guys are providing, that support for finding the counterpart somewhere else in the world, and then all of the complexities involved in hiring that person?

Matt: I'll speak to the technology, and then you can jump into the support around the training. I am literally the biggest technology idiot you've ever met in your life, so when we went to build out our technology, it had to be really simple, really easy to use. Luckily, I'm a firm believer in always being the dumbest guy in the room and over hiring for where you're going, not where you are today. So we have an extremely wonderful and very intelligent chief operating officer and head of technology, to build out just an absolute world class technology, that had to be really intuitive and easy to use for everybody.

So this technology platform provides a variety of different dynamics. First, it acts as a CRM. So if you think about the life cycle of a client, that's how it was constructed, that's just a CRM for identifying customer relationship opportunities. Once those customer relationship opportunities are identified, it then takes you through an applicant tracking system. The recruiter is going to be an employee of each franchisee, each franchisee has their own recruiter or recruiting team, depending on the size of their business that they build, and the applicant tracking system allows them to manage, pulling applicants in and tracking the pipeline of finding rock stars for their clients.

Once people are hired, this technology also acts as a global resource system, so this is doing all of the benefits administration, taxes, any type of calculations, reporting, etc. If you think about just trying to manage reporting employees across 50 states, and we're doing it in hundreds of countries, there's a lot of stuff going on. And then subsequently it also acts as an asset management piece. We'll have a lot of clients that come to us and say, I really need my team members to have this type of computer or be able to have this type of technology. We have the ability to act as a way to distribute those technologies, procure them, distribute them to their team members, and provide asset management around that, and really allow clients to be able to push the easy button in terms of being able to hire offshore. And then the last piece, it does all of the accounting, billing, invoicing, etc.

So really, we like to think about it like, you need your cell phone and our technology, and that is it, in order to run your business. You're obviously on your email, texting, shaking hands, kissing babies, taking people out for wine and steaks, identifying where the opportunities are. But beyond the tech, that's your entire ecosystem, your clients, you, your recruiter, your accounting, everybody can operate in one place. We just had to make it really, really simple, so it's extremely powerful but very easy to use. So the technology is very, very strong to support the owners.

Tammy: And we're really excited about who we have coming on board with Satellite Teams as well. Today we were interviewing an AI strategist and transformation architect. I don't know, Matt, I thought that would be something maybe to bring up too, we're really, really excited about them coming on board, and being able to not only work with our owners, but help our owners with their clients as well.

Alan: Yeah, I was going to ask about that actually, how you guys are going to be utilizing AI in this world.

Tammy: Yeah, please. So that's what we're training to. To me, I say AI and global talent is the new infrastructure for scale. That's been my mantra because it really is. So we're onboarding an AI strategist, and through that we're going to have deep dive workshops with our owners on how to leverage all the new technology, but then also how do we leverage that with our clients. We'll have that person be able to do that, helping the owners build those relationships with maybe clients they would not have, because of the AI architect and the AI tools that they're going to have in place.

So we're really excited about that piece, it's the combination of both that can make a huge impact on a business, and right now it's a very, very important place to start. Just like Matt mentioned, 85% of our clients had never hired offshore before, and it's not because they don't want to, they just don't know how to. But it's the same thing with AI. A lot of people want to implement it, they feel like they're behind, but they're only implementing simplified processes, maybe using a chatbot, ChatGPT or Claude or those type of things. So we're taking that to another level and being able to offer that to our owners.

Also, in our owner education, I mentioned a little bit about immersion. So when our owners start, we start with the next step, the next best step process, and within their first few weeks they come to immersion, where they'll be 4 to 5 days with Matt and I, and of course we zoom in our whole entire team, that's from around the world, which is really exciting to see when you see us all on the screen together. This is really where the map gets layered, where the model comes alive, and we walk through every aspect, from owner economics, to tying in everything, the tech, the operation, how it all ties together with your recruiter, all the way to those first placements and the recurring revenue. So everything is tied together in a big flywheel, if I could say it like that.

And our owners will understand and work within that next best step, so we simplify the process not only for our clients but also for our owners. In our resource centers we put modules together for them, so if they were going to hire somebody in the legal industry, we already have job descriptions put together for them, the social proof, which I would love for Matt to talk a little bit about because that's really exciting, our social proof case studies, salary calculation, so all of these tools are already in place for our owners to be able to leverage and use.

So that's a little bit about the training piece of it, but again, relationships are the most important part, and we really do keep our focus there. We try to think about teaching folks, and a lot of it's intuitive, but it's just making sure folks are reminded of what are the different avatars you're going to speak to, a CFO cares about different things, a COO cares about different things, a CTO does too. Subsequently, they all get bonused differently. So you're selling the same thing, but how are you communicating that based on the different avatars, where are you identifying pain points, based on different business evolution, where they are in their evolution. A company that just received VC funding is very different than someone that just received funding from a growth equity or an LBO model, very, very different timelines, mindsets, etc. So again, we want to take it from theory to real practical application of how do we start mapping out how to have some of these conversations and get clients going right away. So lots of in depth education on a lot of different things.

Alan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds like it. I want to go back quickly to the AI portion of it. It sounds like you guys have a new person on board that's going to be helping with the training and all that. So just so I understand this, with this component, you're going to be able to help people, your owners are going to be able to help their clients look at their needs holistically and say, for these tasks, maybe I've got some AI solutions for this where you don't actually need to hire people but actually implement an AI solution, and for this over here, you're better off hiring an expert, outsourcing that to an employee outside the country. Is that about right?

Matt: Yeah, I mean, essentially, if you think about it, every five minutes there's another AI technology that gets released, talked about, whatever. So it's like, myself included, you're just inundated, there's literally not a company anymore that doesn't start with, we are AI native, blah blah blah. There's so much noise out there, and what we found is that there are so many of our clients and even prospects that know they need to leverage AI, it is the way of the future, but where do I start, and it becomes this function of perfection that creates paralysis, and people just don't move forward.

So the dynamic was, okay, let's go find some really smart people that we'll put on our bench, as a franchisor making that investment, and then saying, okay, let's understand, out of the quantum of 10,000 AI applications out there, let's figure out what are the top ten for this industry, how you'd actually leverage them, not conceptually, how do you actually delve in and make it work. And then let's provide that resource to our owners. So our owners have the ability to say, hey, I've got a prospect, I'm meeting with John and Mary at ABC Co, I'd love to bring them in and have you learn a little bit about their business and start sort of a solution engineering of what some options may be.

So we're not there to implement it on their behalf, to the extent that they'd like us to, I mean, there's a lot of organizations that should hire a chief AI whatever they want to call them, well, don't hire them in the US, hire them through us offshore, but you can try a lot of stuff. You're creating a lot of room, there are extremely intelligent people on the planet. So it's one, how do you understand what the art of the possible is, but then take this unwieldy buffet of AI options, drill it down to ten that you can actually figure out which are the best, without you having to figure it out as a prospect. And then we can help you figure out how to implement it and move it forward, whether that's you doing it on your own, you hiring an AI team through us, lots of different gyrations, but we want to help them think through holistic workforce and holistic business process, rather than just focusing on offshore resources. We want to add value to our clients' business at all times, and so however that may work, happy to do that.

Alan: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, I love it. Matt, are you able to talk numbers with us a little bit? I know you guys have just started, so you probably don't have any information from franchisees as far as financial performance, but maybe on your corporate location, what's in your Item 19, would you mind sharing any of that?

Matt: Yeah, so Satellite Teams will do a simple, I mean, we're 3.5 million. I spend 15 minutes a week at most on this thing, and it threw off 600 grand in my pocket last year. That's it, it just is what it is, the work is pretty good.

We have a 98% revenue retention, so it grows and we just keep it. And that goes back to the dynamic of, once you find a rock star that would cost call it 50% of what it would cost you in the US, you're never going to let them go. So it becomes a function of, we have property management companies in New York City, and a bookkeeper, there's 100 grand plus plus plus plus taxes, plus parking, plus real estate, plus all the stuff that makes it cost you 150 grand a year for a bookkeeper, okay, well, we can put a rock star in another country for 30 grand. Once you've gotten comfortable with that, and that works, you're never going to go backwards to hiring back in New York City, it's just not going to happen.

So the revenue retention is very, very strong, and then it continues to grow. I always tell clients, and it's not a function of, you're going to start, I'm going to change your paradigm from what can I offshore to what can't I. I'm not shy about telling them that, they laugh, and I say, no, you think I'm kidding, you're going to hire this first person next month, you're going to call me, you're going to want two more, then you're going to want three more the following month, and we've seen this growth dynamic quite a bit.

So again, I really shifted the focus, we're now really heavily focused on supporting our franchisees and growing the business that way, and over the course of the next year, we're going to be delving out and introducing our corporate clients to our owners and let them take those and move it forward. We don't want to compete with our owners, that's not a dynamic we want to be in at all, so we'll be relaying those relationships over to our ownership group, in order to be able to continue to expand those relationships.

But yeah, I mean, it's the easiest 600 grand I've ever made in my life. It's like, yeah, you built it, shaking hands, kissing babies, taking your friends out for steak and wine and drinks or whatever else. And then what's so rewarding is the clients coming back saying, wow, I was able to pay bonuses to my team, wow, I was able to go hire five more salespeople because, you know, through working with Satellite Teams, you guys created room in my budget. The success stories are incredible and they just sort of grow on themselves. So it's exciting stuff.

Alan: Tammy, a question for you, this could be for either of you, but let's let Matt answer this one first. I'm just thinking from the perspective of a client, if I have a business, let's say I've got 100 employees or whatever in the US, and now I'm looking at adding people outside of the country, I'm curious to know how that works from a culture standpoint. If you're bringing people from areas that aren't physically with everyone else, and I guess a lot of businesses are mostly remote anyways these days, so maybe that's not a thing, but I'm just curious how that impacts the culture of the company.

Tammy: Well, I think what makes us kind of disrupting the market a little bit is what we do on the front end. We help really define those KPIs and who the client is looking for, the job description, we make sure it's the exact right position. And for some of our owners, some business owners may say, I don't even know what the KPIs are, so we help find that, find that perfect employee that's sitting on the other side of the world. But the other piece is, we want them embedded into the culture, the company's culture that they're going to be embedded in.

So on the front end, they could say, I want somebody who's bilingual in this language, in that language, I want somebody who will be on the phone, who's going to be in every one of our meetings. So there's so many different dynamics they can look for, to make sure the right person is placed on the team, so they become part of the culture of the business. And it all depends on that, and Matt, I know you could probably speak a little bit more on the back side of that.

Matt: I mean, we make it really clear, from when clients come up, when we have a client or a prospect, just having that first client interaction, like, you're building your Satellite Team, this is your Satellite Team. When you have a town hall, your team members, your Satellite Team members need to be on that as well. If you're having a company party or an all hands meeting, they need to be participating in that. If you're sending out swag and shirts, we'll help you get them to your team members. The more you lean into, these are my team members, just in another office, that's the mentality.

And you go down and do the work of saying, what is a career progression for this person inside of my organization. The clients that win are the ones that sit there and say, my Satellite Team members, I want them to retire with me. They're taking that long term view, like they would if they were being well run in the US. Those are the ones that can have real success. We have success story after success story where you've seen people hire a junior person on their Satellite Team who are now executives that are clients, and now they have people in the US reporting to them, and they're in some other country. It's just a testament to, again, smart people all over the planet, it just works if you lean into it and let it work, just as, all of us are in different places, Matt is in Mexico, I'm outside of Atlanta, you're in Seattle, it's the same thing. We could have Gerald Acio, who's in the Philippines, right on with us right now, and you wouldn't know if he wasn't your neighbor across the street. So it's pretty incredible.

Alan: A lot of our listeners are still in the corporate world right now and would love to get out and have their own business. What's one piece of advice for someone looking to jump ship into franchising, what's one piece of advice that you would give them, Tammy?

Tammy: Well, I would probably have to say, with Satellite Teams, if you're already leveraging your relationships, you're already an executive, high performing, you've spent years building relationships. You don't want to ever walk away from that, whether you're retiring or you want to do something new, without walking away from all the time, effort, attention that you've already invested into those relationships. And those relationships can come along with you in this type of business, in Satellite Teams. So you don't have to start over, you're starting from complete experience. You don't need a brand new skill set to start, you need a platform that really turns what you've already built into enterprise value.

So that would probably be one piece of advice, just remember what you've already done in the past, you bring all of those as gifts, skills, talents to this. Lean into the industry that you already know the most, and then you'll expand outside of that, and then we will walk you through all the next best steps of growing, building, scaling your new Satellite Teams business.

Alan: Awesome, that's great, that's great. Thanks, Tammy. How about you, Matt, what would you advise to someone considering the leap into franchise ownership?

Matt: I would say there's three things. The first one is, become a really good reader, whether that be reader or listener to books. It's like the Tony Robbins saying, how you turn decades into days. So in terms of franchising in particular, read, listen, revisit it five times, a really important dynamic in that book, really learn it. The next one I always recommend is Sell or Be Sold, by Grant Cardone, you can love him or hate him, the rah rah rah, he's good at it, fine, he's got a really good sales book. Another one, regardless of if you're going into real estate or not, is The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, there's a lot of really good conceptual dynamics to understand how to build organizational growth as an entrepreneur.

So that's the first piece, read three or four or ten books on entrepreneurship. But you're never going to read enough about it without doing it, you can only read so much. Second, get really curious, intellectual curiosity needs to become like an itch you can't scratch enough, just ask a million questions, people are willing to help, but you'll get more confident the more questions, the more competent you are in anything you're doing.

And then third is, we wake up, we're born in sales, we just try to pretend like we're not, everybody's in sales. There's a whole saying around, who's the best salesperson on the planet, a five year old kid who wants an ice cream, they're going to be relentless, they're going to go get it done. So we started at a very young age, but get comfortable in sales, you're going to need to sell your thoughts, your ideas, your products or whatever it is, get comfortable in that. Because I think some people, especially coming out of the corporate world, think, oh, the sales team just does all the sales, no, no, no, no, you're selling every day, you're just trying to compartmentalize, get comfortable in it, learn how to persuade others with your ideas, that's really important.

Alan: I love it, I love it, that's there's definitely a stigma when people use the word sales or salesperson, and I think you're absolutely right though, we're all salespeople to some degree, and we're all trying to educate people on our point of view, whether that's the five year old trying to get the ice cream cone, or the 40 year old trying to get a raise or whatever it is, all of us have a point of view and are trying to express ourselves and get that across, and whether that results in someone buying something or simply just listening and agreeing with you, I think we're all in the same boat there.

So that's great advice. Well, thank you both so much for your time and for sharing your nuggets of wisdom today, and congratulations on being franchise champions.

Matt: Thank you so much, Alan.

Tammy: Thanks for the time, Alan.