Franchise QB

Episode 93: Jeremy Ames- CEO, Guidant Financial

• Mike Halpern • Season 1 • Episode 93

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In this episode of the Franchise QB Podcast, host Mike Halpern speaks with Jeremy Ames, CEO of Guidant Financial, about the journey of entrepreneurship, the diverse opportunities in franchising, and the importance of overcoming barriers to business ownership. 

They discuss the Rollover for Business Startups (ROBS) financing option, share client success stories, and explore the shift towards entrepreneurship in midlife. Jeremy emphasizes the need for individuals to take actionable steps towards their entrepreneurial dreams and the value of experience in business ownership.

Takeaways

✅Jeremy Ames has helped launch over 30,000 small businesses.
✅Franchising offers diverse opportunities beyond traditional QSRs.
✅Many people want to be their own boss but don't take action.
✅Entrepreneurship is often a midlife journey with greater success rates.
✅ROBS allows individuals to use retirement funds for business investment.
✅Successful entrepreneurs leverage their networks and experiences.
✅The fear of losing everything can hold back potential entrepreneurs.
✅Many misconceptions exist about age and entrepreneurship.
✅Business ownership can lead to personal growth and fulfillment.
✅Taking small steps can lead to significant progress in entrepreneurship.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
02:36 Jeremy Ames' Entrepreneurial Journey
05:56 Diverse Franchise Opportunities
09:31 Overcoming Barriers to Entrepreneurship
12:49 The Myth of Young Entrepreneurs
14:44 Understanding ROBS Financing
18:57 Client Success Stories with ROBS
24:45 The Shift Towards Entrepreneurship
27:54 Conclusion

https://www.guidantfinancial.com/
https://x.com/Guidant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyamesentrepreneur/
https://www.instagram.com/guidant.financial/

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XlbD8oyl3uyeiqaM73poH67BX1jRRyCGR7l7qB-3Nz0/edit?usp=sharing. Also, you can view the Franchise QB podcast at www.youtube.com/@franchiseqb.

Contact me and my team with any questions along the way. www.calendly.com/franchiseguy
Mike Halpern, CAFC
mike@franchiseqb.com

This is the Franchise QB Podcast, where we empower entrepreneurs to win big in franchising. We huddle up weekly to educate our audience about the most successful small business model ever created. Franchise it! Welcome to the Franchise QB podcast. I'm your host, Mike Halpern, a 20-year industry veteran and entrepreneur. My mission is for listeners to achieve their American dreams of creating wealth and independence through franchise ownership. Every week we speak with franchisees, franchisors or vendors that support the industry. Thank you for joining us and let's get started. Joining us on the huddle today is Jeremy Ames, CEO of Guidant Financial. Welcome to the show, Jeremy. Thanks, Mike. It's good to be here. Great to have you here. So for over 20 years, you have served in various capacities based on the needs of the business with Guidant. Chief Product Officer, President and CEO currently of Guidant, which is a leading provider of small business financing and administrative support services, including rollovers for business startups, 401k. administration, payroll, HR, accounting, and tax. Guided by your vision to increase the number of people who succeed in small business, you've helped launch more than 30,000 small businesses across 50 states. Super impressive. Guided also actively serves more than 8,000 small businesses with services that take the burden of complex paperwork off the plates of entrepreneurs so they can focus on growing their businesses. I'm going to exhale now, that's a lot. So can you share a little bit about your journey and what led you to focus your career on helping people start businesses and franchises? Yeah, you bet. uh Just as an aside, I've been a franchise owner three different times. So I know a little bit about the world that you live in, not just from what we do at Guyton, but personally, having been- Are you able to kind of comment on the brands that you owned? Yeah, we opened a Sport Clips franchise. I've owned an Elements franchise, a massage franchise, and we were part owners in a Keller Williams franchise. Wow. All three pretty significant, sizable brands. Yeah. I mean, they are now. don't know that they were as significant. think, for example, when we were in Sport Clips, they only had a couple hundred units at most. Wow. I was a customer of Sport Clips about 15 years ago, and I thought they kind of changed the game. It was a really great experience. Mine was in Fairfax, Virginia, not too far from where I currently Yeah. So to answer your question about my journey, I'm what I refer to as an accidental entrepreneur. I went to college to be a teacher and I got to my student teaching and I hated it. So I dropped out of school and then I had to figure out how I was going to pay back my student loan. So I just got a job at a restaurant and started working and I ended up falling into my first business and it happened because I ran into a conflict with this assistant general manager at this restaurant that I was managing at. She basically pulled me aside one day and she said, You are trying too hard. think you're arrogant and trying to make all the other managers look bad. And I just cried in the middle of the restaurant and I turned in my notice two weeks later. And I didn't know what to do at that point, but I had known a couple of people who had gotten their real estate license. So I thought, I'll get my real estate license and learn this. I had one property that I owned at that point. So I sort of thought I was a real estate investor and I thought this would be cool to learn. you know, through getting my real estate license and the people I started to meet, I got connected to the first entrepreneurs I had ever known in my life. And all of the sudden, this whole idea that I'd never even considered was a thing, becoming a business owner started to sound really interesting. And I came up with this idea of how I thought the real estate game needed to change. And I ended up talking to my now wife of 20 plus years to move from Idaho to Washington state and come start this company with me. And that was the first company I ever started. And it was through that. some connections that I made with that business that I met my long-time partner, David Nilsson. And we started doing some investment projects together. And in one of those investment projects, we got introduced to self-directed IRAs. And that really was the entry point. We ended up raising money for some of the projects we did through these self-directed IRAs. And in the process, we said, we actually think there's a bigger opportunity over here. These things are really interesting. People are really excited about it. And it's super confusing trying to figure out how to do it. And that was the genesis of Guidant. That was 22 plus years ago now that we started the company. And to your point, now we've been around long enough where we've helped almost 35,000 people become business owners. That's incredible. I appreciate you sharing the backstory. And I'm kind of glad you had that conflict back in the day in the restaurant, because it launched your career in entrepreneurship and starting this company. sometimes- Thank you, Darnell. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I appreciate it now. So, I mean, obviously you've probably touched on every industry category in terms of helping your clients, but can you give us an idea for listeners that may be stuck on franchising as all QSRs and what kind of franchises your clients have launched with your support? Oh, man, so many different types of franchises. A client I interviewed yesterday had purchased a shipping and logistics franchise, and you've got ones that are pet boarding and ones that are doing home services or business services. You name it, we've probably done it. yeah, QSRs, there are a lot of them, but there are franchises in almost every category these days because people are, there's a big audience of people who want to become business owners but are looking for proven playbooks where they don't have to, you know, they've been in corporate America so they know how to be operators, but maybe they don't feel like they're ready to be the full innovator in a business yet. In fact, one of the things I love about franchising is it can be a great sort of entry level entrepreneurship opportunity. Meaning I've seen lots of people get into a franchise and as they learn a new business in a new industry, they figure out some other problem or some other custom they want to serve and they end up expanding into something else. Sometimes that is becoming a franchisee of another brand. Sometimes it's starting their own thing once they have their feet sort of wet and understand uh how to have a successful business and operate it. Yeah, that's really good insight because a lot of people I speak with that are exploring first time franchise ownership think that whatever they invest in is what they're going to do for the next 50 years. And I'm like, well, it could be, but it could also be something you do for two or three years and then you exit, or it could be something you do for two or three years and then you have management in place and you go off to do the next thing. So I think, you know, having the mindset that like what you do next isn't what you're doing for the rest of your life is probably. changes people's perspective on, know, hey, maybe I can get into franchise ownership and try something. So to that point, like a lot of people that you work with that are mid career that are kind of considering ownership, they're in corporate America, but they never make that leap. like from your standpoint, doing it so many times, what holds those folks back the most? Yeah, well, first I'm going to share, I'll share our data point with you, Mike, because we've been thinking about this a lot as a company. Cause we talk to thousands and thousands of people every single month and most of them don't end up moving forward. So three to 400,000 a year. That's how many employer businesses are set up or purchased on an annual basis. But if you look at the recent data that Gallup put out, 62 % of the adult working population wants to be their own boss. So if you do the math on that, that is over a hundred million people that say, I want to be my own boss. And yet three or 400,000 a year are actually doing it and it's probably some of the same people, right, that are doing many of those. And what I have seen from the people I've talked to is that most people aren't putting in the time. The way I like to think about it is I think a lot of people spin themselves up in a should storm. Should I do it, should I not? Should I do it, should I not? And they keep having that conversation every time they're laid off, every time they have a... divorce or some other health issue, some pivot in their life, they go back to that question, should I do this? And I think it's the wrong question because it's really hard to answer the question, should I, until you've invested in answering the question, how could I? And I think it's because people look at decision points maybe incorrectly. I like to think of it as two way doors and one way doors. There are two way doors, you can walk through those doors, but you can always come back out again, right? That's the exploration you do before you have to make a big commitment of finances or time. And then there are one way doors where, I'm gonna write this $200,000 check and all of sudden now this is real and I've got to operate this thing. And even if I want to walk away, I've got to figure out what to do with it. The time to answer the should I question is when you got to write that $200,000 check. But if you haven't done the work to answer the questions like, How would I finance this? uh How would I find the right business for me? ah How would I think about what kind of things I should be doing and would be good at doing to help grow and drive a business? If you haven't spent the time answering those questions, you're always gonna spin in some level of doubt and uncertainty and probably just dip your toe in the water here and there. So. It's such a good point because being on the candidate facing side as I am as a consultant. That's the first conversation I generally have with anyone that's exploring ownership is how are you going to fund this thing? And they get so wrapped up in the brand. And it's almost like I use the analogy of real estate. Like you don't go out looking for a million dollar homes until you can look at the funding and realize that, I'm qualified and capable of doing this. Um, so is that the stuck point that's common for people in midlife or is it something else? I think people will tell you often that it's capital. What I see when I talk to people and read between the lines is that people who are at a midpoint in their career are typically people who have been successful to some extent, right? They've grown up, they've moved into management positions, they've saved money for a period of time, and now they live in bigger houses and they have kids that are preparing to go to decent colleges, but they also now have something that they didn't have before and that's something to lose. It's really hit home for me because I'm now getting close to 50. But when I started this business, I was 25. And I remember I was sitting on a panel one time and a question from the audience was, how did you get the courage to start your first business? And I thought about it for a second and I kind of chuckled and I said, honestly, it didn't take a lot of courage to start a business at 25 because I didn't have anything to lose. I didn't have a mortgage. I didn't have kids. I didn't have a wife. I didn't have parents that hadn't been saving for their retirement for 20 years that I was worried about having to take care of, none of those things existed in my world at that moment. For me, it just sounded like, oh, here's something fun and interesting to do. And if it doesn't work out, I'll just go get a job. Well, that's not how it is when you're 40 or 50 or 60, right? You start thinking about the people that depend on you and the other things. And so the threshold of certainty that you need to feel in order to feel like you're making a responsible bet is greater. That makes perfect sense. You're absolutely right. You're tethered to all these other commitments and financial obligations and responsibilities. And it makes it harder to make that leap than it did in your twenties. I'm exactly, you know, I'm probably around the same age. I'm 48. I'll be 49 soon. I started my business almost 19 years ago when my first son was born. And yes, it felt risky, but looking back, I didn't have as much to lose as you do now once. you have all of these commitments. So that does make a whole lot of sense. So what are some of the myths or misconceptions that people have about starting a business when they're in their 40s and 50s? You know, it's interesting. We have a culture that I think highlights a lot of really young entrepreneurs, right? We talk about Bill Gates leaving college to start his business or Mark Zuckerberg leaving college or Steve Jobs and and Wozniak in a garage when they're in their early 20s figuring out Apple. That is the myth that we portray out there. But if you look at the data, it is far more likely that an entrepreneur starting in their 40s or 50s is going to be successful than someone in their 20s. And when you think about it, it makes total sense. Because when you're in your 20s, you know nothing. You think you know everything, but you know nothing. When you're in your 40s and 50s, you have a network of people that you built relationships with, you have experiences of things where you have succeeded and failed. You've got all these built up tools and resources that you can access to help you be successful. And so I think a lot of people have this misconception that, entrepreneurship is a young person's game. And what I see is that the real kind of entrepreneurship, the main street entrepreneurship, not the I'm trying to build a $10 billion business is absolutely a midlife journey, because those are the people that are ready to take more control of their lives. Those are the people who want to have a greater impact in their community. And those are the people who have the skills and the resources to pull it off. Yeah, no, that's a really good way to look at it because the Steve Jobs and the Mark Zuckerbergs, you're talking about people whose intelligence is off the chart. They're outliers. The rest of us, you know, it's probably better that we start our business once we have. some experience behind us and we've made tough decisions and we have managed our finances and we have responsibilities and you're now in a position to like do things that are really impactful. So I do like that kind of message that you just put out. So let's talk about some of the products that Guidant offers. Let's start with ROBS, which is the acronym for Rollover for Business Startups, oh 401k Business Financing. those that are unfamiliar, can you give us kind of a brief overview of what it is and how it works? So you can use your retirement funds to invest in a company that you are going to operate or run. You just have to be willing to meet certain requirements, both on how the transaction is structured and then how it is operated on an annual basis from an administration piece. And that is the biggest part of what we do as a company. We've helped over 30,000 people do that, become business owners through that channel. And that's the core of what we do. Everything else ties to that. um There are some other services we added on over the years that are really about addressing connected paperwork issues because, I've been at this for two decades and I have still never met an entrepreneur who said, I really want to be a business owner because I love paperwork. And by the way, I'm super good at it. uh Nobody says that because nobody likes the paperwork. It is something that requires time and effort and energy that takes away from your ability to focus on what really matters for the business. We've just tied together some services that try and make a ROBS funded business as easy as possible to operate oh while meeting those requirements that protect those retirement funds. Cause this is what you're doing. You're not borrowing money from your retirement account. Your retirement account is becoming an owner of this business. Usually the largest shareholder of this business. No, I love that. I mean, I try to explain it in layman terms that instead of investing in stocks like Meta and Google and Coca-Cola, you're now investing in shares of stocks in a company that you own and operate. So you have a lot more control over what happens with your hard-earned retirement funding. And it takes a little while for people to wrap their heads around that. So with ROBS, I can that be combined with cash, SBA, or both to fund the franchise startup? You bet. It's very, very common for people to combine it with other offerings. And that's especially true when they're trying to purchase or start bigger business. One of my favorite uh clients from in the early days of Guidant was Dry Fly Distilling. They were one of the first micro distilleries. They're based out of Spokane, Washington. It was a couple million dollar investment for them to get that business up and off the ground with all the equipment. They used a combination of retirement funds and a little bit of investment funds and some equipment lending and some other uh loans to put that deal together. But we also see commonly people who are using SBA loans in conjunction with retirement funds. And often the use case for that is that someone is trying to buy a business that's large enough that can actually afford them. So I think one of the other challenges that comes up for people who are at this sort of midpoint in their career is they've been successful. They make good money. And so for them to go from being a six figure employee to being a zero dollar entrepreneur, That could be a hard pass for them when they think about the lifestyle components of that or the people that depend on them. But if they can go out and buy a two or three million dollar business, that's the kind of business that can afford to pay the person that's operating it a fair market wage that's going to get them into those six figures and make it so that they can maintain their lifestyle while they're also building this long term equity for their future. Yep, makes sense. So in your experience, what kinds of entrepreneurs or situations is Rob's especially helpful for? Well, I think there are maybe four patterns that I generally see. One is people who have poured most of their savings into their retirement account, usually because their company has some really aggressive matching with it. And so they may not have a bunch of other assets. I can remember a client distinctly who had saved up a million dollars in his retirement account. He had been super aggressive because his company was so aggressive in what they matched with it. But he didn't think he had the assets to go out and buy a business until... He was talking with a buddy once who said, oh, I've been working with this company and this is what I'm going to use to fund this business that I'm going to buy. And he said, all of a sudden it unlocked for him. Oh, I've got a million dollars. I can go buy a $5 million business. This business can pay me what I need to move forward. So that's one example. Another one is people that want to buy without debt. You'd be maybe surprised how many people, when they think about running a business, the most stressful part is having a bank payment that needs to be made every single month. And so we see a lot of clients who want to use retirement funds so that they don't have that pressure of that cash that needs to go out to a bank regardless of how the business is performing. We talked about using it to be able to buy a bigger business. And then the fourth one here would be people who just want to maintain control. Maybe they look at their business and they say, hey, for me to be able to do this, I've either got to bring in investors or I've got to bring in my retirement account as an investor. And they say, well, I'd rather have me. as the angel investor than these other people that may have differing goals and objectives than me in the long run. Yeah, that's a really good point. So I'm sure a lot of the concerns that come up are, don't want to put all my retirement at risk for a business. Like, how do you address those concerns that, you know, your clients have? Well, I think there's maybe two questions there. How do I address that concern? I don't want to put all my retirement funds in one basket. And I just say, then don't. Like, our job is not to convince people to do it or not do it, right? It's to help them understand If this is how you want to move forward, here's how it needs to work. ah So that's, think somebody, you you got to look at your full financial picture and look at what you need to say for your future and where you want to go. And, you know, you can figure that out. There are usually two things that I hear from people that trip them up. One is there are always a number of people who say, Hey, I've never heard of this. This sounds too good to be true. And to those people, I say, well, trust me, the IRS still gets paid at the end of the day. The way this is structured, you're not taking money from the IRS and then doing whatever you want with it. It's being invested in a business. It's an asset, just like you pointed out. So instead of in Meta stock, it's in Mike Halpern, Inc. stock. So the IRS is still gonna get paid, and they're gonna get paid when that money comes out of that retirement account much later on to pay for your life expenses. So if you can continue to move that and grow that, then the IRS is gonna win just as much as you do. Because that's not what happens. what's happening here. You're not taking your money out to fund your life. You're taking the money out to make an investment. You're just moving it from point A to point B. Point A to point B. And the second thing is a lot of people trip up because in order for you to use retirement funds, you have to use a C corporation structure. And C corporations, especially in the small business community, are not well understood because they're usually entities that are used by larger corporations. Right? And so when people think C Corp, they often think, double taxation. I don't want to do that. And so that is just helping people understand how the taxes work because generally the taxes a C corporation pays are less than what you would pay in a pass-through entity, at least before you factor in any dividend distribution. So pass-throughs are more effective if you're optimizing for cashflow now. C Corps are more effective if you're optimizing for equity in the long run. And so You know, we walk our clients through some options of how to think about, you know, first, are there things we could invest in that are going to help the business grow? Right. That's going to reduce your profit, but it's going to potentially increase your equity in the long run. Then the second filter is, okay, now you've paid your C corp taxes on this money. Are there ways you want to reinvest this to continue to grow? Are there other companies you want to buy? Is there maybe they underlying real estate? Actually, this is one of my favorite strategies that clients use because I think it's an amazing way to hedge your bet with your retirement funds is once your business is up and operational and successful, go buy the underlying real estate and have your business lease from itself, essentially. Because now you have two things, right? No matter what happens with the business now, you have this physical asset that can generate income and that can grow in value. And we've seen a lot of clients who have won really big that way, not only financially, but also maintaining control over their location. which can be huge. Yeah. And I guess they're always looking at ways to grow their portfolio and they can diversify into real estate investment that they're already sitting on top of. So it seems like it's less risky from their perspective and they get that diversification play and the benefit. um And I can see how you guys have to do a lot of education because a lot of your clients come in and they're just unaware of these different options. And when you explain it, it's like, the light bulb goes off. I do have options. There's something that can really benefit me if I structure it the right way. And I have great. you know, guidance. So can you give us an example of a franchise owner that used the ROBS program to kind of move forward and fund their project and how it kind of changed their trajectory? Yeah, I'll just give you the example of the client that I interviewed yesterday. So I interview maybe four or five clients every single month as part of my podcast. And this gentleman was for 40 years, he was in corporate America and he got to the point where he was running as the president of organizations. these other companies, two of which got acquired. And so the second one that he worked for that got acquired, it was one of those pivot points for him again, things start to change. And what he realized was he said, hey, you can age out in corporate America. There's a point at which you get too old and they decide, hey, you're no longer somebody we want to invest in. And he tried sort of sitting on the sidelines for three months and hanging out at home. And he got so incredibly bored. But he was not excited about a startup, and he didn't want the stress of debt hanging over him. And so what he decided to do was take a portion of his retirement funds, and he ended up investing in a shipping and logistics franchise. And he has been crushing it because he's leveraging 40 years of experience in his network, this experience he's had growing and developing other people's companies. He's just doing it for himself now. And he's having a ball. I asked him, what was the thing that's most surprised you about this? And he said, what most surprised me was the power of compounding in this business. Because he said, you spend so much time and effort trying to get your first few clients. He's like, but other than a few things you have to work through here and there, once you get those clients and build those relationships and solve a few problems, he's like, you just keep getting paid on those people. And you're still going out and you're building the next set of clients that are coming on top of it. Now, that's a great example. Thanks for sharing that with us. And from your vantage point, what's the bigger story here about small business ownership in America today? Maybe I'll tell you another client story. We had a client who was a maintenance manager for a company that owned a bunch of properties. And he started growing a handyman business on the side. And he got to the point where it was so busy that he needed to decide either to close the handyman business or go all in. And he decides with his wife, we're going to go all in on this handyman business. And so he goes into his boss's office to give us two weeks. And you know what his boss says? He says, maybe this is gonna be good because you capped out on the comp levels we could pay you, but we can hire you back to do some of this work and we can pay you X as a contractor. And I heard him tell this story and I thought to myself, man, if that doesn't encapsulate what's happening in our world right now, I don't know what does. If you're gonna take the risks of a contractor, you might as well get paid as one because no one is coming to save you. Most of the large businesses in America are public companies. Right, they're owned or they're maybe owned by PE firms. And so they have one goal. It's not confusing. Everyone knows it. It's profit. Make money. And when you become too expensive or you become too old or they can automate you, they're going to. So I think we are directionally all becoming entrepreneurs. The question is, which of us are still outsourcing that capacity to someone else? We're leasing ourselves to another company. But really at the end of the day, we're still the ones that are accountable because when it gets hard, we're gonna be out on our own and no one is gonna be standing there to protect us. And you know this well, Mike, because you're in the Virginia area, right? I am. So what's happening near DC right now? You have a ton of people that are losing their jobs that the only reason, or one of the driving reasons they probably took this government job is because even though those typically pay less, they have amazing long-term pension benefits. These people are like, if I stay here 20 or 30 years, I'm gonna be set for life. And that only exists in government now. It doesn't exist in private companies because they've all gone bankrupt trying to fund those. But now if you've got 20 % of the government workforce that's losing their jobs, even even then the one job that people thought, there's safety here. It's just not there anymore. It's crazy. I mean, that's where I live, Northern Virginia. I'm the oddball in franchising. Everybody is works with a federal government in some capacity and there are a lot of friends of mine and you friends are friends that are coming to me and saying, Hey, help me get into entrepreneurship before I get laid off. Um, or, know, they, they just keep squeezing them out. And the ageism thing is real. Like I have a lot of clients that are in their early sixties that are getting squeezed out and they're like, I need to do something proactively before I'm gone. And I have another 10 years in me to kind of do something. And just like you said, there are clients that play golf and realize that retirement's not for them. They want something they can be passionate about and they can kind of put their time into and keeps them young, you know? um So to your point, like for someone that's listening who feels stuck, they know they need to make a move, but they can't take that first step. Like what can they do to kind of take a step towards entrepreneurship? Yeah, my number one prescription. If you're saying, hey, Dr. Jeremy, what would you prescribe for somebody who is ill is they're not moving forward with their entrepreneurial dream? I would say sit down and figure out how much time you are willing to commit per week to explore how you could become a business owner. And let's say it's three hours. Great. Then spend 30 minutes of that time planning what you're going to do, what you're going to research, who you're going to talk to, what you're going to go look at. And spend the other two and a half hours actually doing those things, and then try that for a month, and then sit down and say, am I learning something? Am I having fun? Do I wanna keep exploring? I I think sometimes people have this idea that business ownership is a burn the boat strategy. And at some point it kind of is, right? If you're write that $200,000 check, there's a little bit of burning the boats that happens there. But everything that happens up to where you're cutting that check is not. It's a two-way door, and you can walk back through it. And like I said at the beginning of the podcast, you're never really going to be able to answer with conviction the question of should I, until you've invested in answering the question of how could I. So make the space and start working on it. You don't have to know how all the pieces are gonna connect yet, you just have to say what's the next logical step, right? One logical step could be, hey, I know Mike, I'm gonna go talk to Mike. I know he helps people find businesses, I'm gonna go see what's going, you know, what he has to say or. hey, I'm gonna go look at YouTube videos or hey, I'm gonna go search online for what businesses might be available to buy or hey, I'm gonna sit down for 30 minutes and brainstorm ideas of problems I have that I feel like there's not really businesses out there that are solving. I mean, if you put your mind to it, you will be able to find next steps that you can take. The issue is not me giving you what the right answer is for the next step. You will find it. If you- There is no shortage. of content out there. There's no shortage of ways you can get on chat GPT and Google and YouTube and all the things you mentioned to get some information and have that nugget lead to the next one and then really decide if ownership is something that is realistic for, you know, a potential entrepreneur. So I really think that's great advice. Jeremy, this has been great. Anything else that you want to add to the mix before we wrap up today? I just would say being a business owner has changed my life in so many positive ways. It's made me a better person, a better husband, a better father, a better leader. And so part of what makes me so passionate about this is I know what happens when you put yourself in a position where you have to face hard challenges and where you learn that you have agency to change the things you want in your life. It will change you as a person. And so I'm super passionate and want to be helpful with anyone who wants to go down that path. if anyone wants to... message me on LinkedIn or you want to go check out my podcast or my newsletter or my website, please do. I would love to be helpful in any way I can, regardless of what you're looking at. And honestly, regardless of whether you move forward, because from in my mind, it is just as good of an outcome for someone to invest in answering how could I become a business owner and then to realize once they've done that research, it's not for me. Because then guess what? You're not going to live the rest of your life in regret. You're going to understand with conviction hey, that's not really my dream. So now I can go focus on the thing that is my dream and go get started on that. I love it. And I will post those links to Guidant and to your podcast so that listeners can go check it out. And if anyone listening would like to connect with Jeremy and his team to learn more about Guidant's funding solutions for franchise startups and resales, contact me at FranchiseQB.com or on X @QBFranchiseQB. I'll get you connected. Thank you so much, Jeremy, for taking the time to get in the huddle with us today. You bet, Mike. Thanks for having me on. You got it. Thank you for listening to the FranchiseQB podcast where you're at the helm of your future as a franchise owner. If you enjoyed the content, please rate the show and recommend it to anyone that might be interested in franchising. Make sure to visit FranchiseQB.com to subscribe to my newsletter and for an actionable playbook to go from walk-on to legend in your new business. Follow us on Twitter @QBFranchiseQB and join us every week for a new episode. See you next time. Visit FranchiseQB.com to take the next step of your journey towards wealth, independence, and franchise ownership. And remember, when working for the man gets old, you must do something bold. Thank you for listening.