.png)
Shine On Success
Shine on Success is a dynamic, story-driven podcast where extraordinary entrepreneurs, visionary leaders, and resilient change-makers share their journeys to success, revealing both the challenges and the strategies that led to their breakthroughs. Each episode offers a unique blend of inspiring personal stories, practical business insights, and actionable advice, allowing our guests to connect with an engaged, growth-oriented audience ready to be motivated and uplifted. By joining us, you’ll not only have the opportunity to showcase your expertise and inspire listeners but also to be part of a powerful platform that celebrates ambition, innovation, and the courage to turn dreams into reality.
Shine On Success
Franchise Freedom: Unlocking the Power of Business Ownership
What if you could buy a business with a proven system and scale it to success—without starting from scratch? In this episode of Shine On Success, we dive deep into the world of franchising and entrepreneurship with Adam Goldman, a seasoned franchise consultant and serial entrepreneur.
From launching a business in Poland to building multi-million-dollar ventures in Texas, Adam shares his journey of resilience, risk-taking, and the power of choosing the right franchise. He reveals the biggest misconceptions about franchising, the secrets to finding a perfect business match, and why structured business models can be the ultimate game-changer.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or an established business owner looking for your next big move, this conversation will shift your perspective on franchising, growth, and the freedom that comes with being your own boss.
Connect with Adam here:
Website: https://www.franchisecoach.net/
Twitter: https://x.com/FranchisecoachG
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamgoldmanfranchise
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/franchisecoach_adam/
FB: https://web.facebook.com/leadingfranchiseconsultant/?_rdc=1&_rdr
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@franchisecoachchannel
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@franchisecoach
Connect with Dionne Malush
- Instagram: @dionnerealtyonepgh
- LinkedIN: /in/dionnemalush
- Website: www.dionnemalush.com
- Facebook: /dmalush
- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/dionnemalush
Welcome back to another episode of Shine On Success, where we uncover the stories of extraordinary entrepreneurs and leaders who've turned their dreams into thriving realities. Today, we're diving into the fascinating world of franchising and entrepreneurship with Adam Goldman. Adam is a franchise consultant, serial entrepreneur and investor with over 20 years of experience building businesses across two continents of experience building businesses across two continents from founding an IT company in Poland to running a real estate investment firm in Texas and even growing the Vanguard cleaning area developer concept in Houston into a multi-million dollar enterprise. Adam's journey is nothing short of inspiring. Get ready to hear the insights, lessons and strategies behind his incredible success story. So, adam, everyone loves a good success story, but I want to start with this what is one thing you would like people to know about you before we get started?
Speaker 2:The one thing that I'd like people to know is I just don't fit into a corporate mold, right? So when I was at business school, a lot of my classmates were really excited about going to McKinsey and getting a job, and that was just never really my plan. So I'm the kind of person I kind of just seep entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:I love that and I've been the same as you since being, and I got out of art school and knew right away that I wasn't meant to work for anyone. So I've always been an entrepreneur and I love this life, even though it's stressful at times and there's a rollercoaster ride, but I wouldn't want it any other way. So let's talk about what. Can you share a little bit about what initially sparked your entrepreneurial journey and how it led you to the franchising world?
Speaker 2:So the initial thing, it just kind of started early, right when I was two. I it was, I'm aging myself. I'm here in the United States. I was. I was born close to the centennial and my parents say that at two years old I had this urge to win a color television set.
Speaker 2:I was there shaking everyone's hand in order to make sure to have my case as being Uncle Sam, and it ended up being a successful type of enterprise at age two. But, just in all seriousness, when it came to franchising, I just kind of stumbled into franchising Right. So in 2009, I had gone ahead and started a real estate investment company, but I'd found that investors were kind of getting in to my market as of 15 years ago, right, and so I kind of talked to a franchise coach. They gave me a few different options, and the one that I got very excited about was a Vanguard cleaning master franchise, which I started in 2010.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's pretty interesting. So I also own a franchise. We bought a Realty One Group franchise and brought it to Pittsburgh. We were the first ones in the region and we disrupted the market, which was amazing, but I actually love the idea of franchising. So after that, we bought a WeInsure insurance agency and a model mortgage to go inside a real estate company. Both of them are franchises and I do think that for the rest of my life, no matter what business I'm in, there will be a franchise attached to it, because I just think having the model it's like when I used to work at McDonald's, you used to know exactly how to do it. Right, there's, this is how many minutes you put the fries down for. This is what you use, this is the materials makes a franchise to me so important, because you don't just have to start by yourself. So tell me about that franchise and what did you love about that particular one?
Speaker 2:So the franchise was an office cleaning master franchise and it was fascinating in that you're trying to find accounts and you're also trying to find cleaning companies. So you're kind of in the middle right, and so I did it for eight and a half years. What I love most about it is I love it from scratch. It was so exciting the first few years right, where you're just kind of getting started and trying to find these people that want to clean buildings and the buildings themselves. It was very intellectually interesting to start this business from scratch. Towards the end it wasn't as exciting because it was very operationally heavy. It was a lot harder to hold on to counts if you have hundreds of them as opposed to if you only have 10 or 20. At the beginning.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. So do you live in Texas now?
Speaker 2:I do. I've been here now for about 20 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love Texas. Every time I go there, I just absolutely love it. It's beautiful there. I live in Pittsburgh, so it's very cold and it's't seem to be going anywhere, but I heard you guys had some snow down there. Is that true?
Speaker 2:We did. My kids for the first time made snowmen. So yes, it was.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I'm so glad that they got to see that. It's kind of cool. That's the coolest part of it. Other than that, there's not much Christmas Day. Snow is what I love. I don't want to drive in the snow. It's not that easy. Even if it's experienced, as I am, it's very difficult. I like winter on demand. Yeah, Christmas morning winter and after that none. But it's been very cool here, so I'm glad everybody's safe.
Speaker 2:And so how many kids do you have? I have three. My daughters are 13, nine and seven.
Speaker 1:What a great age is. Yes, what about? You, I come from a three girls family too, and it was definitely fun. I loved having sisters and I still do. They're amazing and as we age in our mid fifties, it's it's really cool. So let's talk about like have you had any adversity in your career?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Everyone has adversity right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think that's what I think, but I want to see if you you had some too.
Speaker 2:So let's let's talk about adversity and I think probably one of the biggest adversity stories that I have is that I just started my office cleaning master franchise right and then my wife had pregnancy challenges right that were very serious. She's actually hospitalized for about two months, made this huge investment in an office cleaning master franchise right and literally within two months of this investment she was hospitalized. So, having to manage this new business right that I made this really big investment and, frankly, put a mortgage on my parents' house to support and dealing with a new mom that was just trying to deal with the hospital, that was really challenging and we were able to make it work afterwards. But I'll never forget one of my closest friends when he saw me he's like you looked horrible, adam. I mean managing and juggling all these things was really hard on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. It is hard. There's a lot gone in life and as we grow older, it just keeps coming at us, and it's definitely you have a positive mindset. So do you, do you go to things that you do every day that help you keep your mindset on track? Like, do you read a lot? Do you have, do you affirmations? Tell me about?
Speaker 2:that. I'm so glad that you asked that, because I think that mental health or things related to emotional health or whatever, is just underrated. What I find is that one of my best favorite mentors his name is Warren Rustin and one of the things he taught me and I'll never forget it was five or six years ago. I'm a big believer, by the way, in entrepreneurs organization. I'm a member here in Houston and it's a global organization of other entrepreneurs. It's peer to peer, and he talked about this thing like a miracle morning, right when every morning, if you do 10 minutes of meditation about positivity or of about gratitude, 10 minutes of reading about gratitude or positive things, then 10 minutes of journaling. That's kind of like the secret sauce for creating a great day. And look, I don't do that every day, I probably don't do it most days, but the days that I do that are the days that are most successful for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so what's what stops you from doing it every day? Great, question.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's I don't even know what it is it's. You know what? I'm not good at intention in the morning when I first wake up because, with my three daughters, right, it's about getting them ready for school. So the question is, do I, do I go ahead and do I prioritize sleep to when they wake up, or do I prioritize waking up 30 minutes before? Probably should be waking up 30 minutes before, but a lot of times it's not really prioritizing an extra 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:But you just told me that it makes your day better.
Speaker 2:It does, I know, so I'm not taking my own best advice.
Speaker 1:It was really great. Advice Is that book written by Hal Elrodrod? Is that that's what that's?
Speaker 2:that? Look, he doesn't. That's one book about a miracle morning. This is more just kind of an anecdotally from a mentor of mine that talked to me to do this okay, so he says so 10 minutes of meditation, 10 minutes of reading.
Speaker 1:What was the last 10 minutes?
Speaker 1:reading about uh positive things in the last 10 minutes is journaling positive things it's great and I know there's a 5 am club that has kind of the same idea, but it's an hour, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes Hard to do, I can tell you. I tried it for a little while and it was great and I had great days because of it, but an extra hour was difficult. So I love that you're sharing that with us and the vulnerability of you not doing it every day when you know it actually works. It's huge. So a little bit about when. So you have this business now you help people franchise as well correct.
Speaker 2:So my business it's not helping to the franchise, right, it's helping. So what happens is that I have brands that are in 75 different industries, that are pre-screened, in which I connect potential franchisees with. So it's a free service. And I'm here helping people that want to become entrepreneurs right, but they just might not even know where to start, right, and so that's Roll. It's a free service for them. If I make a match, it's the franchise brands that pay us a commission, right, but it's literally looking for people that want to find entrepreneurship, like you found with your three franchise brands.
Speaker 1:That's really cool, and so it's kind of like matchcom but for businesses.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1:Do you have any crazy people out there? Because let me tell you, the stories I hear about Matchcom are really funny.
Speaker 2:Well, look, we have a lot of crazy people and, frankly, a lot of people that are potential franchisees. Just don't make the cut right. You need to have a minimum, typically a $50,000 in cash and $150,000 in net worth, and I mean, the great thing about my business is that I really have brands for anyone, as long as they have some sort of business acumen.
Speaker 1:I love that. So is there any favorite that you have Like? If you were going to start a franchise tomorrow out of the ones that you're aware of, what would be something that you would like to do?
Speaker 2:So in my inventory they kind of there's a range between things that are very hands on to hands off. I tend to gravitate towards the things that are more hands-off right. So if I were to invest in something, it would be something that would be in a simple model that I could run with managers, and I'm not going to go into specific industries, but I just I have some businesses right. The first type is brick and mortar retail and second one is service businesses, non-brick and mortar. I tend to towards non-retail just because of the expense of having a lease and about 80% of my placements are non-brick and mortar these days.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's so interesting. So we have brick and mortar, so we have six offices and you know, I just was talking about this a half an hour ago, about how they just sit there and we're spending hard-earned money to have them just sit, and we know that. Just sit, and we know that.
Speaker 1:But unfortunately the franchise wants us to have the brick and mortar and it makes sense for people to have a place to go, but they just don't go after COVID. They don't go to the office hardly ever. So I love that you do that. And I actually looked at another franchise. I was looking at a promotional products franchise a while back because, prior to owning a real estate company, I had a graphic design marketing business and I loved it. And there are some promotional products but companies out there that are just awesome and I just I love that. They have the marketing done, they have the pieces and just you start. You said you can be a part of it or you can hire someone to do it, and I like that second idea myself. So tell me some lessons that you may have learned along the way, like at least the biggest lesson that you've learned since you've been in business.
Speaker 2:I think the biggest lesson that I've learned, frankly, is to grow right. So even in my world right, I started this eight years ago and it's changed so much. When I started eight years ago, it was very much a local business. I'm here in Houston Now. I do placements throughout the US and Canada, but my business has really become very digital right. When I started talking to people, we were taught to not do it through Zoom. Zoom didn't even exist very much in the mainstream in 2017 or 16 or 17. It was the pandemic that really made Zoom mainstream right. So I mean just these little things going on in the industry, just staying abreast of what those changes are in order to make my to spatter that's really what I'm here to do.
Speaker 1:So if someone were looking to get to buy a franchise or to get involved in a franchise, what's a piece of advice you would give them how to start?
Speaker 2:Well, look, the thing that I would say is the I'm biased, but you got to talk to someone like me and the reason why is the hardest part of buying a franchise, investing in a franchise, is the front, sorry, the beginning, right. It's about there's so much out there to take that funnel of all those brands and to really narrow it down to three that are a good match for you. And, frankly, that's the kind of thing you can't do on your own. And if you just contact a franchise brand randomly, right, they might seem interesting or whatever it might be, but you're, but you're self a disservice because you're kind of throwing a dart at a board and you're not even sure if that one is the right one for you, whereas if you talk to someone like me, I'm taking all the hard work out of the beginning of the process.
Speaker 1:So have you in your career seen a company that started out and then became a franchise?
Speaker 2:So, look, I mean, all day long I have like this. I met just by coincidence when I was moving my parents from Cincinnati to Houston. There was a company there, a local company in Cincinnati, that did what their whole business proposition is. Their client was real estate agents and they were one-stop shop for them in order to make sure that different houses would become Instagram ready.
Speaker 2:And so I used them before they became a franchise and then, after they became a franchise, they joined my inventory right. So I saw them in many different sides of their ecosystem, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this If I were to transition from a startup to sale and I wanted to sell my franchise, what kind of advice would you give to someone that was interested in selling a franchise?
Speaker 2:So someone that's already a franchisee that wanted to sell it. So what my advice would be is I would advise them to build it as best as they can ahead of time. Right, do not sell a distressed asset. Asset, because if you're going to do so, you're not going to get any money for it at all. But if you build something up that's sellable, right, and the one dynamic of it being sellable or not is how good, how much money you're making. Right, I'm a really big believer in selling at the peak. Obviously, you didn't know, but if you're an Orange Theory franchisee, you want to sell in 2019, before the pandemic, right? So for great multiples, that's my advice. So, presuming that you're at like this high point in your business, go ahead and sell it. That's my advice to anyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. And I have a friend who lives actually in another state and they were thinking about selling their franchise and you know, I said to him.
Speaker 2:You have to look at the numbers.
Speaker 1:You have to see where you are because you're right, the pandemic things were different and it was a different time for all of us. You know, our hope is that it gets back there someday. But you know real estate it's a difficult model. There's a lot of competition out there. But you know, my goal is to keep this company for as long as I possibly can and make it as big as possible and have every agent want to be here Like I have so many great goals, but if it wasn't for the franchise behind me, I just don't think we'd be where we are today. So we've had some agents leave our company and start their own little their company. They can barely get past 10 people.
Speaker 1:We got a hundred plus people in our first year. So there's something to be said about being that small family owned company but having this massive company behind you to help you, and I think that that's what franchising allows. You can. You can a nice person and have a nice family owned business, but then you have this huge company to back you up. In fact, during there's some major in real estate, that happened in our franchise. If it wasn't for our franchise and I was one of those no name companies we could have been in a lot of trouble because the industry shifted so much and having a franchise made a big difference. They had, they had and that was really important. So that's why I believe in franchising. I just believe in it. Just from my whole life, just watching my parents that were self-employed and if they would have had some backing like that at any time in their business, it would have been such a different process, but instead they struggled the whole entire time. So what's a common misconception that people have about franchising?
Speaker 2:So great question, and, look, I want to piggyback on what you said before. I answer that question that if you have the right system behind you, you can scale your business in a manner that you otherwise would not be able to if you were just doing it on your own. My most successful franchise placements are ones that tell me that they've saved so much money in the mistakes they otherwise would have made if they didn't have that system behind them. Right, it makes so much sense.
Speaker 2:So I would think one of the biggest misconceptions I have is that people think that you need to spend a ton of money to get into franchising, right? So many people think, oh, I need to buy McDonald's is going to be over a million dollars, I need to be pizza and Shaquille O'Neal to even start one of these things. And look, I have great businesses that you can get into for as little as $125,000. All in, there is financing available, and I'll give you an example. I mean, mosquito spraying in Houston is not going anywhere, right? So repeatable revenue it is something that is high margin. It's a subscription basis why not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is so funny. You're right, they're never going away. We can't get rid of them, no matter what we do, and so we have a lot of stink bugs here in Pittsburgh. I don't know if you have those in Texas, but boy, we have some stink bugs.
Speaker 2:No stink bugs.
Speaker 1:No, thankfully they smell bad oh gosh. I can't even tell you like it's the most, you know it. Like you could pull up your clothes and you're like, oh, there's a stink bug in my clothes, but not the most pleasurable thing. But we don't have. We don't have hurricanes, like we have snowstorms, and that's okay. So this is something that's interesting to me. You built a business in Poland yes then you came to in building in Texas like how do you do that across two continents? Well, thank you for that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I just kind of stumbled into Eastern Europe at the right time, right so I moved to Eastern Europe in 1996, right so the wall fell in 1989. So I was young and you know, it's kind of interesting because just because I was American in Budapest in 96 or Warsaw in 1998, they gave me too much credit as someone in their 20s. I didn't know anything, but just the fact that I was American, somehow I'm an expert on capitalism and business, so I fake it till you make it right. So look, in many ways Texas is easier just because I'm older and wiser and it's look.
Speaker 2:One of the challenges of Eastern Europe is that the even now, the economy a whole country of Poland, which is 40 million people, even with a lot of growth of the past 15 or 20 years, it's still the size of Atlanta or somewhere else like that. So it's still not a huge market, whereas we're so blessed to be in a place called the United States, right when we have, I mean, our market size. United States, according to our stock market, is half of the world's wealth in our stock market.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I am so blessed to be here in the United States. Absolutely I can tell you that for sure. So, reflecting on your journey, what is one mistake that became your greatest learning opportunity?
Speaker 2:That is a great question. Look, I would say one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made was well, let's talk about this because I was trying to get into franchise coaching, right, and I'll be vulnerable here. I was talking to someone that's very important and she turned out to be my mentor. I missed my initial phone call with her. It was horrible. I mean, like I was, I was, it was somehow didn't make it into my calendar. I had this other thing going on and, like this was in hindsight, it was like one of the most important phone calls of my career, right, because this role of a franchise coach is like the most important thing, right, but I missed it and I kind of fell on my sword. I said I'm so sorry, this just escaped me, please reschedule. And she could have been like no, you know I'm not going to give you a second chance, adam, but she did.
Speaker 2:She did, and so the lesson that I have from this is kind Right, because that are my candidates. I've had people that have come to me three or four times and, for whatever reason, it was not the right timing for them. Maybe I don't know, just something's not right in their life, right, but they come back four times later and if someone's really doing the work and they're a serious candidate and we don't find it, this time I have an open book and let's kind of keep on looking until we find something that's the right match, and I'm forgiving for my candidates that and let's kind of keep on looking until we find something that's the right match, and I'm forgiving for my candidates.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense. It happened to me a couple of months ago too, and I'm really good at working my calendar. It's like I watch it. I know what's going on. I literally miss talking to a professional speaker, because I've been working with the National Speakers Association here in Pittsburgh and learning to be a better speaker, right, because I, because I have a podcast, I own a company, I speak a lot, so don't you know, I get this free hour with this top speaker and I missed it. And then I look, I pull up his website and literally he has coached Barack Obama in about four different presidents and I missed the call. I was like, oh my goodness. But you know what he had Grace and I love it.
Speaker 1:Super forgiving and I just recently found out found out I wasn't on my game. I knew that, but and I explained the truth to him the day that I had a conversation with him was two years to that day that his mom had a kidney transplant, and so we just connected. So it worked out the way it was supposed to. I had the call on the right day with him, right. It wasn't right to have that call another day, so yeah, so so mistakes are made and I love what you said so much. Grace is one of the most important attributes of an entrepreneur and a lot of people don't.
Speaker 2:And I want to piggyback on that. I need grace towards myself as well, right, so I'm a lot of times my own. I can be my own worst critic or my own harshest critic, and I need to forgive myself for making mistakes, because I make mistakes every day, me too.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I say dumb things like oh, I can't even believe that came out of my mouth. Like, why do I talk like that? I'm learning how to be a professional speaker. I shouldn't say that. So I get it and I make a lot of mistakes. But I up to him and I'm I'm forgiving, I really am, I've learned about it so one thing in the last 25 minutes I've seemed to learn about you is that you love to work, but what else do you like to do?
Speaker 2:so it's kind of something new for me, but I am a huge jigsaw puzzle person and I just kind of recently with a couple of years and for me it's kind of my escape, right. So, look, my work is quite stressful, right, I'm talking to a lot of people Some people are interested in franchising, some people aren't, and I'm using one part of my brain. But just to kind of disconnect and to look at a different part of my brain is really a great thing to do and helps me to be focused and on my game.
Speaker 1:I love that, and a couple of months ago we actually did one. We went away for a weekend and we put one together and I bought everybody a puzzle for Christmas this year, because I saw that.
Speaker 1:I saw how cool that was in the time, the family time that it created, and what a great gift. So I found all these beautiful that had the most amazing paintings or you know cool things on them, and I bought everybody a puzzle. So that's kind of wild. We connected, we had that same same idea. So what's next on the horizon for you, whether franchising or not, entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:So not necessarily franchising related, but let's kind of talk personally. So I just ran a half marathon. It's the first time I've done that in five years. I had a new personal record on Sunday, which I'm really excited about. And next for me, I'm trying to. I'm really quite good at my long game right when it comes to half marathons, but I'm not as good at the short game, so I'm going to have I actually have a 5k. That's on two months. I'm going to train for that over the next two months. I think that's really interesting. I've never really put much time or effort in trying to get a new personal record for the 5K, not the 13.
Speaker 1:Is two months enough time to get ready?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because I'm already in good shape, right.
Speaker 1:From half an hour. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I really I'm very confident I'm gonna be able to set another new personal record in the 5K in two months time.
Speaker 1:That's cool. How about? What do you like to do with the girls?
Speaker 2:So my favorite activity with the girls is we just love family trips, right. So and I'm a big believer you don't need to go on that really crazy trip, right? One of my favorite ones is we just hop in our car, we have a minivan and we just drive, and that was one of my favorite trips. We went west we're in Houston, so we made it all the way to Utah one year and then another time we went Northeast. We drove all the way to Quebec and back.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's so cool. How much fun is that? I love that. I love that you're such a good girl, dad. That's really cool. My dad was my hero. I loved him dearly. He just passed about a year and a half ago and I can't even tell you how difficult that's been, because when, like I loved him, he was the first man I ever loved and the moment I opened my eyes he was that man, you know. So I do miss him terribly and luckily I have an amazing husband who's helped me get through a lot of it. But yeah, the last couple of years I've been trying and that's why I started this podcast, because I've been through a lot of adversity myself and I pushed through to the other side. So I always want to share. You know, people that have gone through things and a lot keep pushing forward just sets us apart in that crowded space. So thank you for doing that, thank you for sharing with me and so let's talk about how do people get?
Speaker 1:ahold of you. If somebody wants to buy a franchise, what do they need to do?
Speaker 2:So look two things, and I promise, if I don't think you're fit, I'll let you know, right? So just go to franchiseadamcom. The next step is to schedule a free 15 minute chat, right? And alternatively, go to FranchiseCoachnet. You can also schedule a 15 minute chat there and get my calendar there, just to hear more about my free service.
Speaker 1:I'd love that. Well, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for being on Shine On Success. So if all of our listeners they could like, subscribe and share this episode, if we help just one person, this podcast is a success. Thank you, adam, it was.
