On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. What do you say to the guy listening right now who's, like, maybe I'm a little nervous to call the customers after the project's completed and say, did we service your needs to the best of, like, did did did we did we perform as you expected? Like, that's a tough call to make sometimes unless you know the value of it on the other end because potentially you gotta go back and you gotta fix things. What do you say to that?
Yeah. I mean, if if someone were to be nervous about that, it's it's it's really about not being confident in what the product of services to start with, but it's it's actually also tied to the past. Right? It's tied to something that's already done. And so a a customer feedback or an employee feedback piece actually is is a such an amazing gift. Right? And and it and it can be it can be bad, but it's gonna tell you where the cracks in your foundation are. Because, listen, we, we all have it.
Right? We, we, exactly, none of us are perfect. No company's perfect. And so when you get that feedback and you really understand what it is, It helps you improve the business and helps you to create better employment brand, a stronger business, stronger financials. Right? And so I I don't know why anyone wouldn't want that business. Right? And and it's it's such a gift for for us to hear those things.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe, featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the reel of the reel. On what it takes to build a successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along success and how you too can get there.
Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and keys like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe. Gathering the king's podcast. Today, I've got Brian Basil here on the king stage. My brother, how you doing? I'm doing great, Chaz. How are you doing?
I'm doing well. Honestly, I I don't know if I should be, like, in in, like, a a gratitude perspective or a jealous perspective because you're on vacation in Florida. Where it's warm, doing your time, but you're doing but you're doing it with us. So I'm thankful, but also a little jelly because it's a little cold here in Kansas City, man. For being here. Yeah. It it might my pleasure. I went to miss this. Yeah. That's awesome, dude. Well, we'll we'll we'll get through this conversation.
We'll get some value the to listeners, and then you can hit the beach maybe. Right? You know, it's not quite beach weather, but it is it is nice walking weather. There you go. Yes. I I remember when I spent a little time in South Florida, when I lived there with my family, that's that's absolutely what what we love to do. And especially with the sunrise or the sunset, just be outside and just enjoy that that perspective. So, Brian, you've got lots of businesses, man.
You're here with with a big vision and a lot of stuff going on. Just give us an idea here of who you are, what what kind of businesses that you have. Who are we listening to today? Yeah. Thanks. I So I'm the CEO of driver's seat, and, driver's seat is a shuttle transportation firm. So we we transport people to weddings, and we do work for employers, driving employees to workplace and then, of course, typical airport and buying tours, that type of thing.
But what's unique about kind of the structure of our business, so we have franchise this business We're operating in lots of locations across the U. S. And Canada. And so, we're actually the only transportation space in the franchise Wolfe. Right, which is kind of a kind of an kind of an interesting spin on the whole franchising model. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, as you probably know, I've I've had some experience in the franchise Wolfe.
And so anxious to dig in from the franchisor perspective and see how maybe things are a little different. And, I guess my question to you, because kinda you're you're you're being humble over there with with what your focus is. I know you've got other businesses and and lots of other things going on, but I guess my main question to you, which is the same as every beginning podcast is why? Like, why why all this stuff? Why are you still doing it? You've had this, like, Uber amount of success.
You're franchising all over the North America. Why are you still at it? What pushes you? Thing to understand the, in my space. So I I do own some other businesses that I'm not active in managing. And so things that I've started over the over the last number of years that that somebody else is now running.
When we started driver's seat, which was just a little over 10 years ago, it was really it actually really was about the why it's kind of story, we, and when I talk about we, it's, it's my brother and myself who, who founded the driver's seat, and we were super passionate about working with like minded entrepreneurs. And so you've been in the franchise Wolfe.
So you, like, you just, when you look at a fellow franchise owner and they're they're bright and and they're doing some really amazing things for themselves and their families, that's really what actually motivated us. And so the the why today is actually tied to the why we started driver's seat in the first place because very much against what a typical business course or what I would teach in a business course to somebody.
We started driver's seat without even knowing what the service would be. We we actually started Yeah. So so we we spent a year trying to understand what do we wanna be when we grow up? What Yeah. What type of business do we wanna have? And actually it wasn't about the business itself. It was about the governance and the core values and the type of people that we would work with.
And so we spent spent a year trying to understand what kind of business can we can we develop in order to fit this this these core values, and driver came to the surface. And and in part, it was because it's it's very scalable for a franchise owner. In part, it was it was just something unique. It wasn't a bit of a me too type of a business. Right.
And in part was because we could play a role in helping the communities in which we were, we were doing business in because we do all sorts of kind of specialized transport for kids with anxiety problems and these sorts of things. So so this this year of reflection and understanding and review, is actually what still drives us today. And so our big why today with all of the growth that we have and and all the success that the franchisees are having is we just wanna impact more people.
It's just such a fun part of what we do. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you hadn't given a little bit of that background and then the, like, the actual time, money, effort spent in that year, that that answer would have sounded maybe a little cliche. Like, we just wanna help people And it's like, well, yeah, but what does that really mean? And so thank you for the explanation there. You gave it to us ahead of time. I didn't have to ask.
The for the person listening today, right, maybe it's they're in their first business. Maybe they're sold 2 businesses in there in their third. I don't know. How do they incorporate what you did in a an entire year? You really sat down and said, what do I wanna do with the rest of my life? And then how do I fit in a business into that? Is that applicable to everybody? Is that, like, once you reach a certain level of of success? Like, what would you say to the person listening? It's like, wow.
I really resonate with that, but I didn't do What would you say to that guy? You know what? The it if you are in pre business stage, if you are in early early business stage or if you have have a business that you've either acquired or grown and you're in late stage stages of it, you can still go through this process. And and the process Chaz we went through was what's our governance all about? What do we wanna do What do you wanna deliver back? What do we wanna spend our time doing?
What's gonna make us happy? What's our legacy gonna be? And we document that out kind of all of these core principles and and what was was super important to us. And and by the way, money was part of that. It just wasn't the prime part of Chaz. Money was the fuel Chaz was gonna allow us to accomplish all of these things. So this had to be scalable. It had to be successful, but it it wasn't we're gonna do this in order to make money. Right?
This was we're gonna do this in order to be super successful on a financial level that's gonna allow us to drive and do all sorts of other things. And so as if you look at a current owner, somebody who's either an owner or wanna be owner, they could actually look at this and say, as I create the next level of my strategy, right, how can I incorporate some of these things? And move the business towards that that approach. Right?
And so so so in our business and and my team, I I always I often take the guitar to be talking about it, but They say they don't, but I'm just passionate about people and passionate about helping them develop and helping them grow personally, professionally, And so everything that we do is really tied to that side of it.
And and and so for anybody that loves that approach or that that side of things, you could literally look at your strategy or look at your growth pattern and say, I'm gonna do this based on this foundation of support and growth and development. Yeah. I love that not only have you gone and done it for yourself, right, like, you spent that time and year and and curating the rest of your life, which is incredible, and it's super intentional.
But now it it extends to not only just your team, but obviously each franchisee that comes in, you've you've built this filter, if you will, of, like, this is who we wanna run with. And so it's only gonna be applicable to the right people, which then further curates what you said you wanted to do for yourself. And so I just I love the the the mindset. Actually, I I relate to it with Gathering the Kings. The podcast, it wasn't necessarily a thought.
The the mastermind wasn't necessarily a thought. It was like, Okay. Let me sit down and like, okay. I've had some business success. What do I wanna do? And it's like there's this level of collaboration slash, you know, guidance slash be able to rub shoulders with guys and gals that are really after it, whether it's podcast form or or mastermind form. And so those things kinda stemmed out of this Man, what do I wanna do? Like, really, what am I designed for?
And and almost looking like an identity perspective. Right? Did you guys go through some of this as well? Yeah. Yeah. You're you're you're spot on. I mean, one one of our core values is to stop at nothing to ensure the success of others. And so this this sounds like a very simple piece, but we have a new franchise owner. So as an example, last week, we Chaz it at the end of new franchisee training. So we have another group come through.
And as we talk about this piece of it, it's how do you ensure, in their case, their chauffeurs or their office staff, how do you ensure their ultimate success? How do you ensure that the, and I'll give you on the consumer side of things, the individual that's booking a $3000 wedding as an example that they have the most amazing experience, not just for customer service.
It's about their success and their success and what their structuring and organizing and doing, how do you ensure the success of your support team? How do you ensure success of the brand? Right. And so So we we love that core value, and it really ties into setting the tone for the culture and the climate within the organization. And We also have another core value that Chaz kind of ties directly into this piece, which is to value the genius and diversity.
And so this is not about the accepting diversity. It's about actually valuing the genius in it. And so, of course, we we all operate in a in an environment where the the the culture is not just so diverse is becoming more and more diverse every day. And so how do we embrace that and how do we really truly understand and appreciate that piece? How do we help educate right, with within our community.
So our community is our franchisees, our head office team, our customers, right, our chauffeurs, and the list goes on and on. And so So we we really like to use this as a bit of a platform perhaps to help educate and move things forward, and it's not that we're not a not for profit business because we are a for profit business or but but this is really tied to the fact of how we go accomplishing business is just just as important or more important than what what the result is. Yeah. I love that.
I think that it all comes down to intentionality, and you guys are just being super intentional. I love you tying it back to the core values. Business owners all across the country need to be doing this. And it's tough, man, because we get so busy. Right? We get busy with just the day to day, and it's tough to tie back to those more meaningful perspectives of why we're doing this or maybe even what's building the team or or why we even started. So, super good stuff, Brian.
I really appreciate that. Let's let's kinda go into a little bit of your story. You kind of talked about you and your brother starting this. You, I've obviously had some previous success in business. Give us the give us those first talks. Like, you were around a table. Was it Thanksgiving? And you're talking about this idea? Like, how did it all begin? Well, and and let me take you back just perhaps even before that, but I I I grew up loving business.
I love the idea of business, and I came from a, you know, I'm not gonna call it a poor family, but there were 12 children in my family. And so That's tough. It's not that we had a lot of extra money. And and but I but I love the idea of being able to generate, perhaps a higher income for myself and and and perhaps in those days when you're a kid, right, perhaps enjoy the things that you you couldn't have afforded.
And and I went to university but in a really, really good business school, but I ran out of money. I we we just we couldn't afford it. And so I had to I had to drop out and and go through the school hard knocks.
But I became I became a a young executive in my early twenties of a multibillion dollar company and then grew my career from my early twenties into my mid thirties And it's really at that point in time when I was I was earning amazing money, of course, and I had a lot of perks and a lot of what people considered in business success, but I looked at life and said, I looked at this and to my Wolfe. I said, may maybe I should leave work and work locally.
Maybe I should own a business locally because I was always, of course, traveling and and working remote. Yep. And my wife looked at me and said, like, are you having a bad day? I don't know what I mean. I I no. No. I have been an amazing day. No. I got the itch. Yeah. I think lice lice very short. Right? And and so I wanna try something I haven't tried before, and and and I actually wanted to work locally once time with my kids and work locally.
And that's how I got into to becoming an entrepreneur versus working kind of the the the corporate world, which by the way, I I I wouldn't have traded it for anything. And so I started a chain of fitness clubs. Really enjoyed it. I had some great success with couldn't find a cleaning agent for fitness club. So I started a cleaning, you know, a company with and we developed these commercial wipes keep the the place clean and sterile. And so life went on.
We built out this this beautiful little business, and I was chatting with my youngest brother, and we always talked to folk business in much. And he said, no. We wish getting the business together. He was working in a in a in another business, and and I said, you know, it'd be he's really bright. Right? So I said, yeah. You know what? This would be great to partner up with you. And try something. And so we started talking about you stay with the fitness business.
Do we move more, more into the, the, the wipes business, the rocks and waves? And I said, Well, what if we did something totally different? Totally making. So what would that be? I said, I don't know. Right? And that's how we kind of end up moving into that. And so So he relocated his family. We opened the business together, and and we launched it. And interesting enough, he opened the first driver's seat franchise and operated as the the manager.
He did that for 4 months, and then we franchised it. And so the very first Shofer became our very 1st franchisee, and then we just started rolling from there. Wow. I mean, the story just rolled right off your tongue, and we're all like, yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. What's next? What's next? But I know that there was obviously some ups and downs in there, and so we're gonna get to some of that.
I love the I love the beginnings, right, like those those inklings of ideas and thoughts And I guess my follow-up question to you around maybe specifically the family or your brother, he had been watching you be successful and wanted to wanted to, like, join arms or he just was tired of his deal, kinda like you were previous. What what was that story there of, like, why it finally came together? Because, obviously, you've been brothers for a minute.
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. He no. He, you know, he had a lot of really good success. He's he he was a an engineer who worked for a very, very big company. He was very successful at a very young age. And then had decided to move out of that and work with one of my other brothers who owns a a home building company. And I had I had come into consultant just to work with them on some of the strategies. And so that's how we got chatting about it.
But it really became more more of a, what do we wanna do together? Right? What what could we do together? And and again, we didn't know at all what the industry would be. That wasn't really actually the important part. Right. But what we did had to meet the core values.
I think side side to comment to this, I just recently, within the last few months, came across the original iPhone notes from our original conversation, which was 13 hours long when we finally discover that Wolfe be driver's seat. So what what a what cool read that was. I remember exactly where it was when we kinda went through that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really cool.
Well, it's awesome that, not only you have the opportunity to to be able to partner with family, but with a brother who is as sharp as you've described. And then I'm sure just superpowers came together, and you guys have been off to the races ever since. It sounds like I wanna know early on what was a good decision that you guys made inside of this new up and coming business where he's kind of figuring out the first location?
You've got a little bit of business experience was that good decision where you can just look back and go, boom. We did this, and it created all kinds of momentum. We wanna learn from it. Yeah. I think the I think the building of the culture and the governance side of it. It sounds like a little bit of of just words on on a page, but it was actually really a really critical piece of this because when you first start franchising, you really kind of have a couple of avenues to go.
You could be have a successful wrap business or pizza business or something. It could be successful for the course of 20 years, and then you can start franchising it. Right? Right. Or you you could be you could be selling the idea of partnering up on a vision. Right?
And and so the fact that we were able to articulate our core values where we want to take the business, the why behind the business, how important the services were gonna be and the type of lifestyle brand that we were gonna be, I think was was really critical in how fast we took off, right, because people were drawn into us, not because we had a proven business model because it was far from that.
And in fact, it was it's a it's a big industry, but it's very kind of fragmented and and a little bit dysfunctional to to some degree, and we had no experience in transportation whatsoever. And so, really, they they weren't they weren't coming in based on the business model. They weren't coming because we knew exactly what we're doing from a business model perspective. They came in because we understood the why and what we're gonna do together.
And so so that piece of it, I think, was was just so critical and and often all talk prospective business owners or people that are ready to get ready to launch either business or a franchise business. And I'll start to ask them what the why and and why would someone wanna come and join and partner up with you Why would an employee want to come work with you? Why would a vendor want to come work with you? And then, of course, why do a customer want to work with you?
And when they don't have any debt to that on their answer to that question, I'll I'll often re question them on on that piece of it because I think it just is so critical. Right? And so so, yeah, so I I think I think the year that we've curating and drafting out what would look like was just such such an amazing spend of time. Right? And and so, yeah.
So you say any anybody listening right now, whether they just part of their business or they've been to business 10 years, and they don't have this dialed in. I know that sounds crazy, but there's a lot of business out there that they're doing 1,000,000 of dollars even. They have no core values. They have no real mission statement. They've just kinda been doing the thing. Stop immediately put these things together. Is that your suggestion, or or what would you say?
I I would say not necessarily stopped to put it together, but be serious about putting these things in place. And there there is a little bit of a wake up call action timing for this type of discussion I think quite good. What, what everyone's calling the great resignation with all of the employment challenges is, is actually the single largest opportunity any one of us ever have.
And so part of this is about building a strong employment brand and and attracting great people because for a lot of businesses today, going out to find customers isn't difficult. Right? If you look at people trying to trying to source vehicles and other things that are going on, it's actually it's actually more about finding great employees. Right? And so what are you doing to build a strong employment brand?
Because the employment brand isn't tied to what you do at the very end of the the thing, which is to to run an ad. Right. It's tied to tied to what are you doing internally and and how attractive is that for somebody else?
And so so I would say that if someone doesn't need to stop to do that, but they do need to realize how important pieces and start to utilize the why and the the governance and the core values to attract amazing people because there there are some just incredible people out there that wanna come and work with great companies. Yeah. There are. You're right. I I got in a little not debacle, but I was to give some encouragement to some entrepreneurs the other day on social media.
And I was I was met with a little bit of resistance around Okay. Tough to find good people and and this kind of like limited mindset that's Chaz nobody's left. And and I just, like you, firmly believe that there's you're right. Maybe there's less. That's the reality. There's boomers retiring every single day. And maybe there are less, which just means that it's not as easy. And so you have to be better. Right? You have to you have to have something that people want.
And if you don't, then they don't don't stay for very long, or they don't they're not attracted to you at all. So those are some really, really important words. I think applicable for any business owner out there, Let's flip the script, though. Ryan, I wanna know a bad decision. Something that you just did. Maybe it was your brother. Maybe it was both of you guys together. I don't know a decision that just like, ugh, terrible, but we can learn from it. What is it?
Absolutely. So and I just wanna jump back to your last comment about there there are people out there, and there there there's less of them. And then and I can go into a whole separate podcasts, all the mistakes that we've made, but but it's it's really interesting. So true fact, over the last 2 weeks, I've had five people approach me on LinkedIn. One that I met at a public speaking engagement I was doing, but 12 or 14 years ago, the other 4 I've never met.
And all five of these people are extraordinarily talented at all if I wanna come to work for driver's seat, and it actually is because the employment brand. And so when people say there aren't people there yet, you're you're absolutely right. So now use that as an advantage to go and and and move your business forward. So so but I I just wanted to to to to speak to that. Yeah. We we it's interesting. The So so we've financially uploaded this business ourselves.
So we have to hunt outside investors. Right. And that can that that can be good, and that can be bad. There's there's there's so unique challenge with with that on the pace of growth. But and so every decision that we take, of course, we don't necessarily have a massive financial bandwidth, especially in the early days in order to to mess up. Right? So we have to be careful about the spend of money, but also on the spend of resources.
And so we we we really put tight controls in if we're gonna make a decision, let's wait because you have to make decisions. You have to move forward. You have to fail often, but let's make sure that we're not financially taking a massive hit or resource wise taking a financial hit. And that was that worked really well until 2015. And and, man, full of full of all sorts of energy and full of all sorts of passion, and we were just on fire. We're doing some great things said, okay. You know what?
Prediction is by by 2020, we're gonna be sold out of franchise locations in Canada. So we better start acting on this, and we need to go and open up in the US. And so I talked to a number of different people in franchising, and I talked to a franchise lawyer, and I talked and and Bliss was on on. And I was advised by 8 out of 10 people not to do it at stage. At that time. Interesting. To you're too you're too young a company.
You have too few locations, even though we have a really significant growth, and I was advised not to do it. And I, yeah, I know, but lots of people tell me I can't do things. And then so we went ahead we went ahead and did it. And it's always a group decision in in our organizations. Now we've got obviously, larger management team and so we make group decisions together.
At that point, Luke and I would always decide together, but I was really, like, I was I was pushing for you more on me than on him. And and so we we opened up in the US. Really, really wonderful decision at the absolute wrong time. And so Yeah. Our our US growth is really good today. It's it's it's quite substantial, but we spent from 2015 to late 2017 really stumbling and and the the the spend was significant. But more importantly, we were just putting a lot of resource against it.
And so it didn't cripple us, but it didn't it didn't help, and it actually slowed down the pace at which we didn't. So when I look back at it, there I mean, there's there's 2 things, and we've talked about this often that Luke and I, but the but there's 2 things. One is we're pretty stubborn. And when we're told we can't do something, sometimes, I don't know whether ego or or whatever. Fires it up. You just wanna push through it and get it fires it fires it up.
And so sometimes we just have to be a little bit more thoughtful in that decision process. For some of those things. And and then we could have because we could have easily waited 6 months since more investigation may have made a different decision on the timing, not on the decision, just on the timing of it. But the second piece is we now look at it and say, okay. Confused to say the best time to plant the tree is 2020 years ago, and the second best time is today. That's right.
And so what do we learn today from what we did in 2015. And what we learned today was that resource spend, which which really it actually came down to a lot of my time is is is what the impact was. Yeah. And that resource decision is pretty significant. And so we have people from all around the world Chaz are approaching us about opening driver seat, a master franchise is in their country, And so we we are being very opportunistic on it.
We're actually setting a finite amount of time, right, and and we come up with a very streamlined process which ties into the the whole mindset component that says if it hits these thresholds, we will continue to investigate time or invest time into this. If it doesn't hit these thresholds, we're gonna cut cut it. Right?
And so it sound when when you're operating a a successful brand, it sounds so great when somebody in South Africa and somebody in Australia and somebody in Italy wants to, to do a master in, in, of your brand in their country, total. But but that's not what it's all about. It's actually about making sure we have continued success with our franchise owners here in North America, and then we can use that to to vault into another country.
Yeah. Yeah. It's man, it that's just really, really good poise is what it is. It's their their good business decisions. I loved how you gave the the just the trajectory of what it would have been like or or what it is, like, even though you made a bad choice. And so even though it was difficult, you made it through and it didn't harm you maybe, but it was difficult for a longer period of time than maybe necessary. Yeah. And so think it just gives encouragement to the listener of like, okay.
Look. You're gonna make wrong choices. We know that. If you've listened to any of my shows, all these super successful guys have made wrong choices. Fine. But a lot of times when they look back, it's like, well, yeah, that sucked like bad. And maybe I would do it different, but probably not. And so if it's not that you don't go back and change it, but, like, what you said, okay.
Well, what did we learn and how can we apply it to to today's decisions And so I love that perspective because it's it's honest and it's right now. It's like you have the, literally, the same choice to expand yet again in a in a pretty aggressive way. And you're you're putting some some confines on that to make it to make it applicable for your growth so that it doesn't harm what you've already done. And I think that's where a lot of entrepreneurs, we get stuck sometimes.
We so focused on the growth where we don't calculate all the cost, resource, or money, or time, whatever. And and then it starts to harm what we've already done which then takes away focus from the the foundation of what we've already built. Would you like to add anything to that? Yeah. I mean, listen, growth is sexy. Right? It's like it's it's like No one no one comes to talk to me about my business and says, hey. How are the year over year numbers? How's the development of the franchisees?
Right? There's lots of that happening, but that's not the sex part where else are you opening? What's happening? And so we're we're so passionate about, again, the development, both in the personal development business, but but also in the financial our existing franchise owners. And we're seeing a lot of really great success with Chaz, but we, we have this explosive growth happening as well, and we're opening a new location every 5 days.
And everybody right now wants to focus on the new locations every 5 days. Yeah. And and and nor ignore the already born. Right? And not and and not internally, but that that's where people's mindset. And I and I get it. Right?
And so so we just have to always stay, and and I my thing part of my job with my team is to continue to maintain focus on the existing team and their ongoing success so that we're building better foundation, better support, better systems, better processes, better software so they could continue to to realize success. Yeah. This equates to every business.
So your business right now, your customer is the franchisee, And so you gotta take care of your current customers, and you gotta go get new ones. And and this is the dynamic in every single business. We have to fill the pipeline. We have to go get sales. We have to grow. And that's the exciting, the sexy part that you're just talking about. And then there's the, like, well, shoot. We gotta we gotta be really good at what we do.
Not one's who retained clients, but so that it's not this constant, like, filling of the boat over and over and over again because that wouldn't be good either to have the same 50 or 100 or 1000 franchisees over and over and over again, you then it eliminates the growth. So you gotta kinda be able to, like, row with with a 22 ores. In in your boat. Otherwise, you're just kinda gonna do a circle of new sales or new franchisees or taking care of your 30 and never growing. You know what I mean?
That's it. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. When when when when the pandemic hit, like like all companies, we were trying to understand how to kinda navigate and manage our way through it. And I got together with the the management team, and they said, okay. So this is gonna be awkward because I've never really managed a business through a global pandemic before. And so what are we gonna do?
And when we developed a 4 tier strategy, and and it was interesting because the 4th tier of that strategy was to maintain revenue or some level of revenue, Knowing that there aren't gonna be people getting married. They're not gonna be going to the airport for family trips. There's not gonna be people going on crapper tours. And so what are we gonna do? Well, we need to come up with some other sources.
Chaz can't be our only focus because we're gonna burn ourselves out and spin our wheels because we don't we really don't know what we don't know. And so part of the strategy was we need to maintain physical and mental health of our franchisees. And so that became level number 1. And so we really actually spend a lot of time focusing on what do we need to do with Chaz? What type of nutritional advice do we need to give them?
We did offer virtual online workouts and training, lots of things around calendarization scheduling, advise them to turn the news off at certain times, etcetera. And so we focus on on their health. We focus on building their network because it was a very noisy time with negative news. And so Yeah. Build your network and support others. Right?
The third piece was to help flatten the So how can we use the massive fleet of vehicles we have in show first in order to help flatten the curve across North America? And then the fourth one is, oh, yeah, and let's go and try and get a little bit of revenue because We're gonna need that just to survive. And and the result, the result was really, really good because the franchise owners really understood these four key points and really ran with them. Right?
And and so the result was we we we came out of COVID actually with a with a revenue increase, not decrease, quite substantial, and we came out with healthy franchisees, not not that everybody made the same level. People had personal challenges, but but it really was tied to a very tight strategy. And again, going back to the why behind what we did, Yeah. I love it. Vision and strategy are are are twin brothers, and they they can they can either be helpful or harmful. To one another.
And so I appreciate that perspective of working them both together because you can't just have the vision. You've gotta have you've gotta have the strategy. So I wanna know, Brian, what's a habit that you think that you possess that all this time has unexpectedly kept you from further success? That's kept me from front success. Yeah. I think I I tend to work well with high performing people. Sure. And I re and I do realize that and not everyone can perform at the same level.
And so for the benefit of the employee, if it's an employee or the contract employee and for the benefit of of myself and for the business, sometimes they just enslate that a little bit and and have somebody between the two of us. And so I perhaps don't have the same level of of patients, right, with with with some of them.
And so so I'm a very I'm a very methodical leader, and and I'm I'm I'm very purposeful in the approach and what I do with it, but realizing that and understanding that I I sometimes if again, this kind of habit forming, I would have a habit of expecting everybody to perform at the highest of levels, and and not not everyone's capable of that or really knows how to get there yet.
So Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really effective with middle level performers and bringing them to being high level performers and with high and helping them achieve their dreams and their goals. But it's sometimes it's really what understanding we're we're the downfall Wolfe the balance. But Yeah. No. You've given us just a such a great, like, two sides of the coin perspective. And I think a lot entrepreneurs are probably like Chaz.
Even though the listener right now may only be operating a small business where it's just 1 or 2 people, I I guarantee you they feel a similar way just because that's why we started the business because we're we're we think at a certain rate or a certain pace or certain urgency or a certain standard. And so there's always gonna be that. I think that you gave also some very practical ways to to be able to help navigate that. I'd really appreciate that. I'm gonna go over to our speed round here.
I'm gonna come come at you with some questions in a in a totally different format. But inside the business, inside of driver's seat, I wanna know what's the most important KPI or the way I like to say it is If you Chaz only pick 1 to track one thing, what would it be? Franchisee satisfaction. So Yeah. When the yeah.
So when the franchisees are thriving, when they're when they're prosperous, when they're doing well, when they feel that they've got the right support, the right leadership, Obviously, when the business is performing, if if they're friend if they're satisfied, it's because they actually have less friction points with their chauffeurs, which means we're doing a good job helping on deployment. It and the the business performing well.
They've got the financial wherewithal of the beans in order to continue their their growth and success and that they they feel that they're part of a team. And so we pride ourselves in in franchisee satisfaction, perhaps such a weak word for it, but in in the connection that we have with franchisees and make sure. So I think from from my perspective and and how our business is structured when the franchisees are thriving and doing well, everything else just becomes easy.
It's not easy to get it to that level because it takes Right. Day day and day at work, and it takes a lot of focus and a lot of attention, but it really is about their satisfaction. Yeah. They're the drivers of the business. And so would you equate that to someone who's not a franchise or like you, would you equate the person listening right now? Do they do they take that that thing that you just shared and say, okay.
This is the satisfaction of my employees, or is it the satisfaction of my client or, like, yeah, my the end user. Right? What would you say or maybe it's a mixture of both? It it can be a mixture of both. And and, I guess, depending on the size of the business and the stage the business is in, but but primarily, primarily if you have really, really used and engaged employees by and large, not not there's not a direct correlation, but by and large, you're gonna have extremely happy customers.
And so I think actual measurements, like an actual scored measurement from your employee base is just extraordinarily important. You need to hold yourself accountable to it. It needs to be publicly declared. It can't be behind the scenes. On some laptops somewhere that no one else gets to see. And so so that part's really important.
And and and I'll I'll share with you at the office with our support team So coming in and out of COVID waves, we were extraordinarily sensitive to people's nervousness about it and and how it all kind of transpired and all the different news that they were hearing about And so we kept the office well sanitized.
We we went over the top with respect to all of our protocols, but one of the things that we did was everybody worked hard to keep high touch surfaces clean and sanitized, but they also everyday raided the company on how san sanitary the the office was and we posted it on a massive screen every day. And we talked about it openly. And so so this was like a very, very much publicly declaring, and it's interesting because we had some co op students working for us at the time.
And one of the mothers called me and said, I've I've just gotta tell you, like, it's amazing. Like, like, my daughter comes home. She's a university student. She comes home. Just talks about how, Jordan, you guys are on the cleaning and sanitary protocols. And she says, you guys actually put a big score up on the screen, right? And so So it it it really is about measuring some of these things. Yeah. And then and publicly declaring them and then holding yourself accountable for it.
Yeah. I think that a lot of business owners maybe get nervous about the accountability piece. Right? Like, if I put up the score up on the screen, Wolfe, Brian, I mean, may not like the score. It may I might have to meet myself in that type of a of a measurement. And so That's exactly it.
What do you say to the guy listening right now who's like, man, I'm a little nervous to call the customers after the project's completed and say, did we service your needs to the best of, like, did did did we did we perform as you expected? Like, that's a tough call to make sometimes unless you know the value of it on the other end because potentially you gotta go back and you gotta fix things. What do you say to that?
Yeah. I mean, if if someone were to be nervous about that, it's it's it's really about not being confident in what the product of services to start with, but it's it's actually also tied to the past. Right? It's tied to something that's already done. And so a a customer feedback or an employee feedback piece actually is is a it's such an amazing gift Right? And and it and it can be it can be bad, but it's gonna tell you where the cracks in your foundation are.
And because, listen, we we all have it. Right? We we exactly. None of us are perfect. No company's perfect. And so when you get that feedback and you really understand what it is, it helps you improve the business and helps you to to create better employment brand a stronger business, stronger financials. Right? And so I I don't know why anyone wouldn't want that business. Right? And and it's it's such a gift for for us to hear those things. Yeah. It it's totally the right mindset.
I hope that the listener is paying close attention because you're giving them straight gold right now, Brian. Appreciate it. What what book almost said, what business would you recommend? You could probably recommend a couple businesses. Maybe a driver seat franchise, right, a book. Wolfe you recommend for a business owner trying to grow their business in 23? What would you say? Good to great, which Jim Collins is is an incredible book. It it it changed me forever.
And so I think if anybody if anybody wants to understand really how to structure their business and and understand exactly how all of the different components of business will will interfit and and such a such a strategic yet tactical book because it gives you real life examples, and he's not people's opinions. Right? So that one's really good. Traction is another great book. Yeah. And I think like all things attraction, you have to go through it. You have to understand where your gaps are.
You can implement it, and it's a very it is a very tactical book. I don't think you run your whole whole business just based on how the book is is set up. Sure. But the structure of how, like, disciplines and the structure of how to set those things up and how to measure what you're doing. And and the challenge with the challenge with not measuring those things, I think, is very real. Yeah. I understand completely, and I think both of those are very good.
I I love the the higher perspective slash still tactical of good to great. You're right on with that. Love that book as well. Probably a good time for me to reraise. Been a minute on that one. So I'm gonna take that as a good reminder to pop that one in my audible, and I get another download on that one. What would you say about intentionally networking or master mining with other entrepreneurs?
You'd kinda mentioned this a little bit as one of your 4 pillars, actually, during the pandemic for your franchisees. What are your thoughts around networking and master money? Yeah. It's it's so critical. It's Chaz a business owner and a community, people people of course love to do this who they know and trust. And so there there's just a natural affiliation to that piece of it, but it's not just for the purpose of of winning business.
It's actually for the purpose of personal development and understanding. To some degree, it can be a little bit of giving back. And so one one of the things I do is, is I mentor other business members who are at a certain level, and they do it at no charge and and do it through through a local group, a chamber group. And I often get asked, like, why would you spend time doing Chaz. And the answer is really simple. Right?
I I actually get back way more than I give out of those things, and and I Yeah. It helps me course correct and and put in perspective some of these things. That's alright. That's part of my networking is to do Chaz. And I've I've made some really amazing friends and and and and this will, you know, acquaintances through that.
But but, yeah, I I think connecting in your community is important to connecting with other business owners and, of course, with where we all are getting used to this type of a Zoom call and these types of things now. So utilizing this technology continue to connect with, with other is, it's really important. Doing so in a purposeful way, so understanding, you know, what, why are we doing this? What are we gonna get out of it? What what can I possibly deliver to you?
What could you deliver back to me? So it's not just a chitchat Chaz session. It's it's really more about working together, right, at a personal or developmental level. Yeah. Yeah. It's that collaboration piece. And it's it's also interesting that you said entrepreneurs at a certain level because that's what I found as well is that when you've got a business owner that's smaller. It's a little bit more about coaching, a little bit more tactical, which is totally fine.
I've I've got lots of those folks not only associated to gather in the Kings, but also friends. Like you said, I've coached and tactically given mentorship to business owners and and salespeople for for years years years without charging. But at a certain level, it's about collaboration. Like, whereas that peer to peer kinda comes in and we get to kinda rub shoulders, and I don't necessarily need tactical from you.
I need to kinda just throw a throw a situation at you, and I need to see how your mindset or how your experiences kinda break it down. And maybe that gives me a nugget or 2, which is totally different value perspective. And so I'd I really appreciate you going through that because you're 100% right. It doesn't necessarily matter, like, size of business always.
It's associated to mindset, but a lot of times the 4 the force of the business, the size of the business, as it gets bigger, it forces you to think at a bigger rate, which then causes this different conversation. Would you say anything to that or agree with that? Yeah. No. No. Exactly. And chatting with others and and work with others force you to think differently. And and I it's so important that none of us are a focus group of 1. Right?
We we really understand it and get perspective around this. And so so I love to have inquisitive and and kind of level 2 or level 3 conversations with other business owners around their wise, around their challenges. And so often we get into these discussions around tactical, financial, operational things, and and all those are all important as well.
But often, a a business owner, in our case, a franchise owner, or it might be another business owner often they're going through struggles or they're they're they're seeing some challenges, and they're not exactly sure how to navigate that. And we could we could be we could be faced with the exact same type of thing. And so That's where lots of high quality discussion, but really tying into the why behind all of this is just so important. Yeah. Love that.
The perspective of where you're at in the business and where you wanna go also kinda ties into that. And so I think that just the mindset of people even here listening today, they that that they want to get better. They want to grow. They're they wanna listen to you and take take some notes here today is is at least a step in the right direction. If not, they're already full in motion of being coachable or wanting to collaborate. There's gotta be a spirit of of desire there.
Otherwise, it doesn't work regardless of the size of business or mindset. Chaz that that's exactly. Yeah. They're they're listening to your podcast versus watching Netflix right now, and and that's that's an amazing piece. Right? That's an amazing step. Yeah. Speaks a lot about him. I'm gonna ask you a question about your family, Brian. So there's this new thing that I'm become obsessed with. It's my family. No. It's not new.
But there's this there's this concept as an entrepreneur that we've gone all in on our business. Right? And I'm excited and I'm obsessed and and we're working night and day, and and I think we can all relate to that. I think we can also all relate to, man, I think I left a couple people behind sometimes in the midst of that pursuit, and So then the conversation of balance comes in, and I hate that word because I'm just obsessed. I don't know how to be balanced. This doesn't make sense to me.
So I've resorted to the idea, okay, how do I be obsessed about my business and my family, right, and my wife. So my question to you is is how give us some perspective on all these years you've been an entrepreneur. How have you been obsessed about maybe both your family, your wife, and the businesses. Mhmm. Yeah. I've I mean, I've I've got 2 wonderful kids. I've got a a life. This will be our 31st year being married. Congrats, man. So it's yeah. Yeah. No. And and and she's wonderful.
And and the family's wonderful, and I've got a an extended family with, with, with 12 siblings. I've got an extended family of 59, and we're close to close to all of them. Yeah. Wow. And so so so I think there's there's probably two ways to to look at this. The first one is love the one you're with.
And so when I am when I am with a franchise owner, when I'm with somebody from our support office, when I'm with a prospective franchise owner, I try to be very focused and and loved what I'm with at that moment in time. Right? So really making sure that that we're connecting. And so because we'll we'll have other things that are going on in our life, of course. Right? And and the same thing goes with with my family. Right?
And it's not that there's a certain time when work turns on or family turns on, this is it it's all intermix. There is no such thing as as work hours or a work day. It's just completely intermix. I'm doing the things that I love to do at all times. And so today Chaz actually a very good example. So my wife and her on vacation, we're we're visiting friends. I was spending this time chatting with you and really enjoying it.
And but I I prepped my wife for it, and she completely appreciates and understands that. But it doesn't mean that I didn't have a cup of coffee and chat with her this morning out on the deck. And it doesn't mean that we're not gonna go and have nice lunches together. And so those Chaz will all just get intermix as part of our day. And the other piece is I'm really fortunate, I think, because my family has been a different stage of their life very involved in in the business.
And so they've able to to to play a role and and and take some learning from it and some experience from it. And and both my children now, they're now adults. They moved on to other things and are very successful, but but I I look at this was part of their lifestyle. Well, it wasn't about what I do versus what they do. It was part of lifestyle. They they became part of our brand. They were there during spirit. They so we have Spirit Day at the office.
And so during during training during training on on the Thursday, everyone decks out in Orange because that's our our corporate colors. They were always part of that. They were part of arranging a social events, and they were part of working there at times and and and playing a role. And so, it can be an integral part of what they do as well. And so I try not to keep those separate at any point.
But, you know, as as you're aware, because you get asked the same question, which is, like, Do you work a lot of hours? Right? I said, no. I I don't. Right? I I mean, I'm I maybe I do, but I it's not really work. It's it's my passion. It's my love. My family's my passion, my love. I love to exercise. I love food. I love to cook. I love to travel. I love my business. I love I love our franchisees. I love their success. And so it just is all part of the lifestyle. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a very, very poised answer. I just really, really appreciate perspective because there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there that, you know, what they'll do is that they'll go after it. They'll go after it hard because that's what we do. We just we just know how to run. Like, let's just run And and then, unfortunately, there's relationships that maybe get left in the dust or or or tarnished.
Mhmm. And and then you feel guilt and, like, there's this, like, cycle of man, now I gotta cut this off and turn this on. I like that perspective that you gave of of turning on and turning off. And and mixing them together is really kind of the only way to do it. And so I think that your your real life examples there make a lot of sense. I remember when I I think I only had maybe one or two locations of my initial franchise brand.
And and, I told my wife, because I was at the house working, but from my phone tinkering through different apps and such and growing in different ways. And so she wanted to do something together, whatever it was. I'm like, hey. So just I don't have to go to an office. This is really cool. Right? Like, I get to be here, but, like, I'm working at the current moment. Like, I'm working here.
I know it looks like I'm maybe so scrolling on social media, but, like, here in about 2 hours, let's go do that thing. And so Some of it is the prep, the expectation of what you just said, right, and just kinda working and navigating through that. So you just gave a really, really great perspective there. Brian, I got one last question here for you before we wrap up. I wanna know if you could whisper in the younger Brian's ear. What would you say? Oh, yeah.
I had this conversation with with my, my twenty seven year old daughter, not that long ago, but she's super, super successful. And I said, I'm not sure what I would tell my twenty seven year old self that's different from what you're doing today, but I I I think for sure, I would say to myself, because I learned this later in my thirties versus early enough, really enjoy the journey because this is actually not about the destination. It's actually about the journey itself.
And every day, in my twenties, in my thirties, every day I woke up, I loved going to work. I loved the people I worked with. I learned a lot. I was challenged a lot to, to, to do things. And I developed a lot, But I was I was I when I think back to that, that's kind of a a a rosy thought of our memory about what was really happening. I was actually chasing Right? I was chasing a lot. And I was I was growing. I was getting the more senior positions.
I was a very young executive, and I kept thinking what the next best thing versus actually enjoying what was happening over the course of that day of that week or that hour. And I think that that's I think today, people that are are developing their businesses and doing things are are far more balanced that way.
I I I would say that that I'm I'm coming across more people that have that better balance are willing to join that journey, but it's not about how big you can make that business or how much money that you can make at that. It's about using that the funds and using the financials from it to support all the other things that you wanna do both personally and and and with the business. And so just just make sure for for everybody.
I mean, I I've loved every day of of what I've done, but I think I would have earlier adopted to just enjoy this journey. Right? It it yeah. You're gonna go and chase things and you're gonna chase growth, but really understand and put perspective why you're doing it. It's actually not just about the next promotion or the next big sale or the next big contract. In our case, the next state that we open up, etcetera. Right? Enjoy the journey of the your and how you're getting Yeah.
It it's, cliche as as many many would probably agree, but it's so true because when you hear it over and over and over again of, like, just just hey. Today. It's Monday, January 16th. Yeah. I don't know when the show's gonna come out later, but, man, right here, we got to enjoy this moment right here. And, and who knows what'll come from whether it be this relationship or the podcast or the moments that you got to spend today with your wife in Florida. Like, all of those things, we miss them.
If we're just constantly a dialed into the next thing. It doesn't mean that we won't be dialed in because I don't know if we know l l how to do it without that, but really, really great perspective. Brian, I just so appreciate being here. How can the listener connect with you? Whether it's they're interested maybe in opening a franchise or maybe they just wanna pick your brain as a business owner. How can they find you? Yeah. And and I would I would I'll I'll preface this with saying reach out.
It doesn't have to do with the franchise Chaz how to build franchising. It can just be connections. It can just be because you wanna just chat business or chat development and other things. But, yeah, just reach out. So so my email is very simple. It's brianat driver seat inc.com, but the best place to reach me is on LinkedIn. So it's Brian Biggs on LinkedIn. That's awesome. We'll put both of those in the show notes for the for the listeners to be able to find you.
And we wish you nothing but blessing. Success. So your your your family is already obviously killing it, but your business, all your franchisees. Again, just thank you for being here. We really, really appreciate it. Chaz really, really great experience. Appreciate you having me on. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away.
More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses in multiple different industries and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300 other very successful 78 and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone.
And so gathering the Kings literally exists two bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe. That in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the kings dot com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit. To 1000 kings. Talk soon.