A couple weeks ago I loaded up the car with my wife Angelyn and our youngest, Mira, and drove down to San Luis Obispo. I wanted to show Mira around Cal Poly, where I went to school.
Walking a campus you last called home decades ago is a strange feeling. A few corners looked exactly like I remembered them. Most of it had changed completely. New buildings, new majors, whole fields of study that didn't exist when I was a student there.
I sat down on a bench for a minute, and carved right into it was a line from Helen Keller: "The highest result of education is tolerance."
That one stuck with me the whole drive home.
What I Kept Thinking About On The Way Home
I got a good engineering education at Cal Poly. But almost everything I actually know about running a business, I learned after I left.
Years after school, I invented a product and built a whole company around it. Manufacturing, the works. It did well for a very short time, and then it came apart, and I lost the thing I'd built.
That failure is the only reason I ever went looking for a franchise coach. I'd run out of things I could teach myself. I needed someone who had already made the mistakes I was about to make.
That's how I found ShelfGenie. I ran it for 14 years, grew it past $4M in sales across my region, and eventually sold it. None of that happens without the failure that came first, because the failure is what finally turned me back into a student.
The diploma was the start of my education. It was nowhere near the end of it.
π― HiPer8β’ Principle: Lifelong Learning
"I stay a student, especially when I think I've already arrived."
The people I meet who keep winning are the ones who never decide they're done learning. They get more curious as they get more successful, not less.
I recorded an episode of The Franchise Champion Show with Steve and Iara Anschutz, who just signed to open a Square Cow Movers franchise. Steve coached Division III college tennis for 14 years. Fourteen years of being the expert in the room. When we talked about what having a franchise coach was worth to them, his answer was simple. We don't know what we don't know.
That's coming from a guy who spent his whole career being the one who knew. He still wanted someone in his corner who could see the blind spots he couldn't.
Try this: Pick one area of your life where you've quietly decided you've got it figured out. Then find one person who knows it better than you do, and ask them what you're missing. The answer is usually the part you couldn't see on your own.
π Quick Updates
I built the Franchise Owner Fit Assessment. It's a new tool for anyone circling the idea of franchise ownership and wondering if it actually fits them right now. About six minutes on your phone, no pressure. It reads two things that decide fit, whether the money side lines up and where you sit across the eight HiPer8β’ traits that tend to make great franchise owners. You walk away with an honest read on where you stand and what your single best next step is.
ποΈ This Month on The Podcast
Episode 43: The Loan Question That Almost Stalled Their Franchise - Steve and Iara Anschutz, Square Cow Movers Steve coached Division III college tennis for 14 years before he and Iara signed to open a Square Cow Movers franchise. Two weeks after signing, a bank mixup on their truck loan nearly stalled the whole thing. They walk through how they handled it, and why Steve says a coach still made all the difference. Watch here
Episode 39: Why Did a Starbucks VP Buy Spavia? - Paul Groshko, Spavia Day Spa Paul spent decades running operations at Safeway and Starbucks, including three years as EVP in Tokyo. He retired at 54, got bored in six months, and opened a Spavia Day Spa in Lincoln Park, Chicago. He jokes he couldn't spell SPF when he started. Nearly 11 years later he's a two-year revenue leader across the whole Spavia system. Watch here
Episode 38: Corporate M&A Exec Builds $4M Bath Franchise - Michael Sarfity, Five Star Bath Solutions Mike was grinding 60 to 80 hour weeks as a director at a Big Four consulting firm, chasing a partner track that kept moving. He'll tell you himself he's probably the least handy person you'll meet. In under two years he built Five Star Bath Solutions of Orange County into a 26-person operation doing $4.3M in his second full year. Watch here
π 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.
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. Schedule 15 minutes
Thanks for reading. Go learn something this month that your younger self would be proud of.
-Alan
Alan Regala
High Performance Franchise Coach
Former Multi-Million Dollar Franchise Owner
Athlete to Owner
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