What I Have Learned Being Both a Franchisee AND 150+ Unit Franchisor

Hello,

Over the past 6+ years as a franchisee of Anytime Fitness and now as the franchisor of Augusta Lawn Care with over 150 locations, I’ve learned invaluable lessons—and made my fair share of mistakes—that I hope can guide you on your own journey, whether you're building a franchise or leading one.

NOTES TO FRANCHISEES:

• Take checklist notes at initial training week. I made 170+ bullet points and then executed on them after Anytime Fitness training. This took me almost a year to finish.

• Follow the systems. Thinking you know better than the franchisor is like day-trading instead of investing into ETF’s. You win big sometimes but overall it's safer to just dollar-cost-average into index funds.

• Take note of how the franchisor treats technology. Are they spending money on investing into AI, robotics, and tech-forward initiatives?

• Ensure key man risk is mitigated. If you being on-site is required and there are not systems to manage multiple locations, realize this is a side hustle/job, not a business with enterprise value.

NOTES TO FRANCHISORS:

• If you are bootstrapped, have a clear path to 100+ locations otherwise YOUR cash crunches could be dangerous to all franchisees. Most franchisors won’t make it!

• Focus on unit economics per location. This will sell locations 100 to 1000. (Example: we are trying to solve the seasonality of lawn care and Q4 collapse of revenue)

• Invest heavily in vertical integration and controlling your technology. It will be extremely painful, expensive, and you will get pushback but this will be the moat against your competition

• Communicate daily via “mastermind” type Q&A with owners. Do not run and hide when you make mistakes that affect them. Over-communicate.

• Create Franchise Advisory Counsel and take regular NPS + surveys to find ways to serve franchisees more. Most important one. Just do it. I have completely rethought our priorities after doing this. I was way off.

PS - Interested in joining Augusta Lawn Care franchise? Book a call with my team here: AugustaLawnCareServices.com/franchise