I’m excited to share my recent conversation with Nick Sheehan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Rep’M Group. Nick and I talk ALL about the many benefits of franchising, and the services that Rep’M Group offers to businesses looking to expand and scale!
Nick describes how he got into franchising at a young age:
“I’m all franchising. It’s all I’ve ever really done. I was fortunate enough to have a mentor in college who was in franchising, had owned a lot of different businesses, and at the ripe age of 22, got me into franchising by doing an ink and toner recycling business, which is the most UNSEXY business of all time! However, I literally knocked on doors selling toner door to door at age 22. We built it to a half a million dollars a year business and long and short was successful. So we franchised it! And fast forward five years later, I had 35 franchisees. I sold the franchises, trained the franchisees, I did everything.”
Nick discusses the 4 pillars of Rep’M Group and the ways they help businesses grow and scale.
“It’s really the four pillars that every emerging brand needs in order to go to market. So Brand’M is our first division and that’s really our marketing division. What is the go-to market strategy for a franchisee and really what is the go to market strategy for Franchisor? It’s peeling back that onion and saying, “What is it that you have today and what do you want to be when you grow up? If you had 100 franchises tomorrow?” And everyone has to be rowing in the same direction, the franchisee, the franchise owner, and if that messaging isn’t clear up front, it’s going to cause problems down the line.
Our Grow’M division is essentially our our FSO, our franchise sales arm and franchise sales organization. It’s a six week sales process. Bring the candidates through, learn about the concept and see if it’s the right fit for them.
And then you’ve got really our Build’M division. So my partner, Rob Cambruzzi founded RPM, which we relabeled Rep’M, which is a real estate project management, and essentially that helps franchisees not only find the sites, but it also manages the construction process. So once they sign the franchise agreement, then we bring them into that process and really hold their hand until they get their CEO: Certificate of Occupancy.
And then the final division, which I think is a big differentiator, is Scale’M. And Scale’M is all about looking at where the brand is today, because one thing I learned that is 100% always the case is franchisor that has three or four corporate locations. And even if they have a couple of franchisees, when we sign with them, what they’ve done to date is not what needs to be done going forward from a standpoint of operationally like they’ve they’ve opened corporate locations. They’ve figured it out over time. But that’s not replicable for a franchisee because most of what what they’ve done is in their head, not on paper, what I typically see. And so without that translation and I don’t say this because it’s the wrong way to put it, but you have to dumb it down for it, make it dummy proof. And what that means is everything has to be laid out, everything that a franchisee needs to do to be successful so that when they go in and buy a franchise, if they execute on the plan, they’re going to be successful.
So those are our four pillars and every brand that comes in, not all of them use all four divisions, but most of them do because obviously there’s value there and we try to become kind of that C-level executive team for emerging brands as well and utilize our resources to help them launch the right way.”
Nick and I discuss a number of the amazing brands that the Rep’M Group is actively building, and if you’d like to chat with Nick, I’d be happy to make a personal introduction for you. And as a Franchise Consultant, my services are free to you, and I’d be delighted to offer you a consultation and to begin exploring franchise investments that could be a great fit for YOUR goals and YOUR budget.
Ready to explore YOUR future in franchising? Contact me now using the form below!
