Happy November!
Last month Angelyn and I went to South America for the first time. My friend Hans Podlipnik coaches the Chilean Davis Cup team, and he invited us to come watch Chile play Spain. If we were flying that far, we figured we should make a trip of it.
Snowboarding Without the Snow
The tennis was amazing. Getting to watch professional tennis at that level with Angelyn is something I won't forget.
The harder question was what to do with the rest of the trip. A friend of ours who's a travel agent helped us think it through, and we landed on the Atacama Desert. I didn't expect much from a desert, even if it's the driest one in the world. I figured a lot of sand and not a lot to do.
I was wrong. We did an astronomy tour and saw the Milky Way with our bare eyes. We saw salt flats and flamingos, geysers, and the rainbow mountains, and behind all of it, the whole time, were the snowy Andes.
There was one thing that bugged me. After we got to Chile, I found out a few of the others on the trip were going skiing a few hours outside Santiago. Before we left, I'd thought about how much I'd love to snowboard the Andes. Our plans were already set for the desert, so I let it go, and I was a little disappointed.
Then on our last day in the Atacama, I went sandboarding. It's exactly what it sounds like. You hike up a sand dune with a board, in my case an actual snowboard, and you ride it down.
When I thought about what I'd wanted from snowboarding the Andes, it was doing something in Chile I couldn't do back home in Seattle. Sandboarding checked that box, and I got to do it with the Andes in the background anyway.
🎯 HiPer8™ Principle: Creative Problem-Solving
"How can I...?"
Once the ski trip was off the table, the question that helped me was this one: how can I still do something here that I can't do at home? Asking it that way turned a missed trip into a search, and the search turned up a snowboard and a sand dune.
This happens in franchise searches, too. Someone falls for a brand, then the territory they want is taken or the numbers don't work in their market, and it feels like the whole plan just fell apart.
The brand was never the goal, though. The goal was what the brand was supposed to give you, whether that's more time with your family, something you own, or income you control. If you hold onto that, a closed door turns into a question you can work on: how can I get that some other way?
You'll ask that question a lot once you own the business, too, because a tech quits, a supplier misses a delivery, or a slow month shows up that you didn't budget for. The owners I've seen do well still get surprised. They just get to "how can I" faster.
Try this: Pick one plan that didn't go your way this year and write down what you wanted from it underneath. Then start a sentence with "How can I..." and see what shows up.
📍 Quick Updates
Franchisor workshop: I recently spoke to eight Surface Experts franchise owners about selling their businesses. We covered valuation, what buyers look for, and how to make a business more valuable and easier to sell, plus what every owner should be working on now to get there. That material comes straight out of Owner by Design.
Owner by Design: The program is coming along nicely. It's a lot of work to build, and right now I have no free time, because all of it is going into getting this thing up and running.
YouTube: Back in January I wrote about having 32 subscribers. We're at 159 now, with over 63,000 views. I don't know if that's good or not, but a few people have reached out to me because of the podcast, so I'd call that a win.
🎙️ This Month on The Podcast
Episode 54: How to Buy a Franchise After a Layoff (Hallie Savannah, ERA Group)
Hallie spent years in freight logistics, most recently as a Global Key Account Director, before she was laid off. She had no intention of ever owning a business, and she says what got her thinking about franchising was my newsletter. She walks through her validation calls with owners at three different tenure levels and what her first few weeks as an ERA Group owner looked like.
Episode 48: 5 Franchise Due Diligence Mistakes Nobody Warns You About
I walk through five mistakes, starting with falling for a brand you love as a customer and ending with the one underneath all of them, expecting the franchisor to make you successful. I also get specific about validation calls (8 to 10 owners minimum, across different regions) and why you should plan for 6 to 12 months of working capital beyond your initial investment.
Episode 41: 25 Years at Dairy Queen, Great Clips and Planet Fitness, Then He Became a Franchisee (Jonathan Steward, Mr. Handyman and Mosquito Shield)
Jon spent 25+ years on the franchisor side coaching franchisees, then opened Mr. Handyman in Southern New Jersey with his brother Jim in 2020. In 2024 they bought Mosquito Shield, which started with a coffee meeting and ended at a closing table 104 days later. He also talks about why it's a lot more emotional when it's your own money.
📚 Free Download: The Franchise Fit Playbook
Not sure if franchise ownership fits your goals, skills, and capital? This free playbook walks you through the questions worth answering before you go any further. No cost, no pitch.
🎯 The Franchise Owner Fit Assessment
If you want a more direct read on where you actually stand, this is what I built. About six minutes on your phone. It looks at the money side and where you sit across the eight HiPer8™ traits, then hands you an honest read plus your best next step.
Ready to Talk?
If you've been circling the idea of ownership and want a real conversation about it, grab 15 minutes with me. No pitch. Just an honest look at whether this makes sense for where you're headed.
Thanks for reading. If a plan of yours falls through this month, go find your sand dune.
-Alan
Alan Regala
High Performance Franchise Coach
Former Multi-Million Dollar Franchise Owner
Athlete to Owner
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