Military Spouses - Feel Good Stories with Surinder Goode

Surinder Goode is a military spouse, mom, dog mom, businesswoman, and podcast host. Her new show is called The Goode Show. It is dedicated to highlighting Veteran and Spouse entrepreneurs, talking with retired Vets about their military experience, and talking with kids about growing up as a military child.

Married to an active military service member for 25 years, Surinder Goode brought her experience and business savvy to the military. Now she brings almost three decades of stories about being behind the scenes and dealing with her coffee business and the military to the public with her podcast, The Good Show.

Surinder Goode is an entrepreneur with work experience in the U.K., the Middle East and the
United States.

She was born in England, and at a young age, her family decided to move to Scotland. After graduating college, she moved to the Middle East, working as a flight attendant on commercial and private flights.

In 1998, while visiting a friend in Coronado, CA, she met her future husband, who was on active duty.

 Acting impulsively to provide a service to the U.S. military and seeing a mutually beneficial opportunity, She drafted and presented a business plan to NEXCOM (Navy Exchange Command) to open and operate coffee stands on naval bases throughout San Diego. Starting with one cart in 2002 on Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, Her business expanded to thirteen carts and a staff of twenty-eight employees. This venture gave her a better understanding of the military from both genders.

In April 2023, Surinder launched her podcast The Goode Show. Her platform is dedicated to highlighting Veteran and Spouse entrepreneurs, talking with retired Vets about their military experience, and talking with kids about growing up as a military child.

welcome to another episode of the franchise Academy my name is Tom Scarda

0:08

and I am very happy that you're with us for another episode. We are going to

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talk about something that has really nothing to do with franchising this episode but it is about military and

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Military spouses so there's a lot of good information a little bit different but I think you might really enjoy and

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love what you're about to hear I have surrendered good with me and Serinda is

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a military spouse but has done a lot of grand things on military bases

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to help the military active duty and also their spouses so I want to invite

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in Miss good how are you surrender I'm good Tom how are you listen thank you for saying Grand things

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well I think anything that you can get done military basis Grant

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this is true this is true from my perspective um everything is you know very locked

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down and secure and it's hard to kind of do anything um

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it is and I don't think you would really expect it any other way you know um

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but it's it's um I will say for the the time frame I have been on basis it's

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been fantastic our service men and women out there are totally awesome

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they really are I mean I can't even I this that's like a whole nother level you know for me to even wrap my head

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around what men and women do and and the you know what they give up to serve the

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country it's just like it's so Honorable in my uh opinion anyway I I just have

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such great respect but um and we're going to talk about that but I also wanted to before I forget to mention it

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for the listeners you have your own podcast and it's called the good show

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tell us about that that is correct I just recently launched it um and I'm really excited with it Tom I

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get to speak to again some great people some veterans some active duty military folks and some great spouses that you

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know hold down the house at home and keep everything together while you know partners are out there on deployments so

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I get to speak to it it's a military pro-military based podcast and it's to

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acknowledge our great service men and women that's fantastic and it's I mean you

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could tell by her velvety voice that she yeah recording and talking to people

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this it's so great and and so it's so it's the good show so it's I just want

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to spell it g o o d e as in your last name that is correct it's called the

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good show and it's on all the platforms uh so go on there follow me and listen to some of these great stories it's uh I

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think it's just a great connection between the military world and the civilian world right get and that's really the emphasis

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of the show that that or the that you produce right it's trying to be that

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liaison between the two worlds because they are kind of separate

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um you know civilian if you've never been in the military or if you don't have any military uh members in your

3:29

family it's very kind of back of your mind you don't

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really think about it no and and you really should be thinking about it because it serves such a great

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purpose in in our society I think it's because of those great

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um men and women that civilians have the luxury of not thinking about it yeah

3:52

well that's a good way but I'm always you know I love to work

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with veterans and help them find franchises veterans are so so great at

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business ownership because in franchising is all about systems and the military is all about systems in

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regardless of which branch and and so we're actively trying to recruit

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military men and women and I think that they don't understand the fact that this

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world is open to them and and on that topic and I know that you want to talk more about this kind of stuff the um

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enfranchising there's a an association a huge association called the international franchise Association we

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call it IFA for short and it's at franchise.org they have

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a [Music] um uh some what do you call it they have a

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program called vet friend which groups veterans and helps get them into

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business um and that includes discounts SBA Loans I mean it's very Hands-On and it's been

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in effect for you know way more than 20 years

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I'm sorry I interrupted you there Tom but this that's really important because I'd like you to come on the show as well

5:14

and talk about that because like you said our veterans out there as you go

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through the service the one thing that I've realized with my own husband after 30 years of serving there's an element

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of conditioning and their mind works in a way of just what is the job let me get

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it done there's and that's just the objective so I think that veterans

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um working for themselves already are a step ahead because they have that

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mindset they know they need to complete the mission so going into some kind of

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franchise where there is also an element of support um I think is a great program

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it's it's phenomenal it's so it's so great um and they get discounts on the

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franchise fees and special help uh and that's the least that we can do to say thank you for their service yeah very

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least I mean so um it's vet friend and we'll talk more about that on on your

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show as well and and the thing to know though is a lot of times you know veterans coming out of the service

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um don't have like a lot of money saved up um and so

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you don't need a lot of money to buy a franchise people feel like oh I need a million dollars you don't

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um there's a lot of great franchises out there that cost the same as like a luxury automobile wow you could make a

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lot of money with it if you're willing to do the work and do the marketing you know all that stuff

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um and see that see the work part of it that's where your military just knock it

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out because that's how they are conditioned just knock it out and get it

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done absolutely so what what's your affiliation with the military

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well obviously I'm a military spouse so my husband served 30 years

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um and I spent just over 26 with him so um and my other affiliation with the

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mobile apart from being a part of this big family because that's what when I moved here obviously being an expat

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um my husband's friends became my friends I didn't know people in San Diego so I became a part of this great

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big family that accepted you in without judgment and without question and that's

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the beautiful thing about it for me and um so my give back at the time was I

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opened a small little coffee shop on base and this is where it really started rocking and rolling for me because at

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those locations I got to hear firsthand from these guys and these girls what

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their job entailed um how they felt about going on deployment their first experience

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outside of the US these are great stories a lot of courage and so um as I went

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through my coffee lady experience on the basis um as I came out of that

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I'd met a lot of vets that had retired and like you said earlier on you know

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you've saved a little bit but maybe you know not as much as you possibly hoped

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but you you know you can do a job and you know you don't need micro managing so you want to go into something where

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you kind of like have that element of control you put your hours in you get out of it you know what you put in and

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um so I started into you know I heard a lot of those stories and so I went the route

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of the podcast after I closed my coffee shops down because again to give these guys and girls a platform to talk about

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the challenges of owning a business um how to set it up who do you go to for

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help um and there's a there's a lot of veterans out there that have done great things with their businesses

9:09

no it's great and there's some businesses that were started by veterans Within

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um so there's a lot of cool different variations and all different Services too I mean basically your husband is in

9:24

Navy is that right that is correct he retired from the Navy as a command master chief wow yeah

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so you're obviously not from San Diego originally where are you from

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a little place in England called Wolverhampton and I was there for a very short period of time before the family

9:46

moved to Scotland so I normally just tell people Scotland because it just you know saves the heartache kind of thing

9:53

um and I spent most of my childhood and growing up in Scotland and then for some

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um and I always knew it's so weird time I always knew from an early age that I

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was born in the wrong country I always felt I should have been born in America

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everything I watched on the TV I mean some people out there won't remember Starsky and Hutch

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um you know you know

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um so anyway you know the Gulf War happened the first Gulf War happened and I found myself

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applying for a job as a flight attendant in the Middle East and I remember my

10:33

father saying to me just you know you do realize the war's just broken out there and I thought yeah but the economy is

10:39

great so I flew out to the Middle East and I worked as a flight attendant and that

10:45

Tom is where I got my first experience of the the US military because whilst I

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was out there um they um the Cobar Towers had been

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bombed and I lived in Bahrain which is a little island joined by a Causeway to

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Saudi and we felt the reverberations and for a little old Indian girl coming from

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Scotland I've never been in that kind of situation before never felt anything like that before

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um and it was scary I can't like it was scary but the crazy thing was this we were surrounded by the US Military

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so it there was this comfort of knowing that okay excuse my French but if goes down

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all is good you know um so that's when I first started you

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know interacting um with the US Military and I was in Bahrain for quite some time and then the

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inevitable happened I met a sailor yeah I met a sailor and moved to San

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Diego and um still with the same sailor that's great

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yeah yeah no complaints at all I mean you know the Navy life I think for a um

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for the partner that stays at home because we also forget as well spouses

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aren't just female they're male as well because there's some kick-ass women in the military you know and so for the

12:14

partner that stays at home you know it's not for everybody Tom you

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know it's not for everybody you spend a lot of time by yourself you've got to be self-sufficient um you know

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um if something's going to happen you've got to be able to take care of it and um I know for a lot of spouses they've

12:32

relocated from point A to point B so now you're in a situation where you

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don't have any friends or you don't really know people but I will say this the the Navy and I'm sure the military

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you know all over they have some great um

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little get-togethers for spouses to keep everybody you know um to keep that Community camaraderie going as well yeah

13:00

yeah it's wonderful and um you know and you know we could do to help you know

13:06

franchise Academy you know let us know we are uh you know devout fans is one

13:14

way to say it so yeah yeah I think that once you come

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on the show and we can get some more information about how people can get in touch with you how they can start their

13:25

franchise I've actually met a couple of vets who had started franchises this was

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you know they were talking about over six seven years ago and um

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I really need to check in with them and see how that's going yeah yeah yeah I

13:41

hope they're doing great what's your advice to someone who is thinking about starting a business or or

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investing in a franchise you know

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I think and this is gonna sound crazy but I think the one

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place where you know people fell and I and myself included

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you have to start you've actually got to start um I went through a period um before I

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opened my first business of putting a lot of things down on paper business plans um

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and there's a lot of work involved in it I think people think that once you own a business that oh yeah yeah it's all good

14:23

well if it was that easy and all that good then everybody would be doing it you know um you have to persevere stay strong you

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know um it's hard it's not easy you have to do a lot of research but stick with it

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stick with it and stay the course right you know and and you know when you say stick with

14:44

it what we say in franchising is follow the system every franchise has a system so follow

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the system but but I also like what you said you know you have to start yeah so

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somebody was saying to me yesterday literally now that you mention it um former Marine

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um in in Charlotte uh I was doing consultation with him and he said you know honestly all you know all sales

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aside and I'm not a salesperson but um I'm just coaching people he said do

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you think that this is a good time to start a business I said is it a good time to have a baby because there is

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there's no good time

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and actually you know if if things if economy is slowing or whatever that

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actually usually proves to be a great time to start because you get kind of your druthers and you get your feet

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balanced and then you ride a wave when you come out of that recession

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so it's a great time to start a business you know the other thing I tell people is this it's um you know somebody said

15:52

to me recently they went oh my gosh I'm scared and I went you're meant to be I mean it's normal yeah you know you're

15:58

meant to have it's like before you know people go on stage and perform and they have um you know nerves you're meant to

16:05

be nervous and I always think that you never want to get to a place where you're that lackadaisical because then it's kind of

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like you've lost that edge you know you're meant to be nervous you know the book starts with you now and it stops

16:19

with you so there's a lot of responsibility in between and as you

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grow your business I know this you know I mean we've all done it Tom I mean um

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you know you you have to Pivot you know like five million times because you

16:35

what's on paper may not pan out you know in real life so you've got to change

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things around but um if you're smart enough to have that idea and to put it

16:47

down on paper follow through right yeah don't don't let the song die

16:53

in you you got to sing a song you know so sing that song it it's so

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you know I always share with people when when they're looking for a franchise it's not about franchisee or franchise B

17:05

but what it really is is the choice between uncertainty or unhappiness and

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most people choose unhappiness and that breaks my heart because they

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have the song in them they know the notes you know they just need to get up on stage and do it and and they're

17:23

scared to do it and so they just toil away at a job just to pay the bills

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you know and it's it's sad because you're you're denying the world of your

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talent yeah you know I used to tell um my employees at the time I used to

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say to them listen ladies you spend um about 85 of your life at work you want

17:49

to make sure you're in a job that either is teaching you something to get to the next stepping stone or you're you're in

17:55

a place where you know um you enjoy it right otherwise it's just

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not gonna pan out you know yeah that you said that because I wanna since you said that I want to say I want to share

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something um that I coach people on because a lot of people you know the phrase

18:14

um if you love what you do you never work a day in your life yes absolutely it's true in a job but it's not true in

18:21

a business it's not true in a franchise so what I mean by that is hear me out

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people will be like what are you talking about um the thing is is when you're in a

18:33

business you don't have to be passionate about it's not your hobby right try to

18:40

do something that's your hobby chances are really good you're gonna fail there's you're you're not thinking the

18:47

right way you know people as a good example like somebody said to me recently you know I know this person

18:54

that makes great cakes and pies and everybody's like oh you should start a bakery or buy a bakery franchise and I'm

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like you have to realize that baking is 10 of the baking business the 90 is the

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operations of um marketing and employee hiring and

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retention and social media and you know all that stuff it's not you know the

19:19

baking part you're gonna hire somebody to bake you know this is true and so you

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got to find a business in franchising anyway I would say find a business

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that'll give you the time and the money eventually so you could do whatever your hobby or your passion is to your hardest

19:37

content you you know I completely agree with you and the other thing I think people need to think about is I had

19:43

somebody come to me a couple of weeks ago and they said to me um they wanted to open up a coffee

19:49

business so I was going to you know give them some assistance and every time we had a meeting it was four o'clock in the

19:56

afternoon and one day I turned around to them and said okay we're gonna meet next week I'll see you at zero 400 in the

20:01

morning and they went zero four hundred I went okay you're gonna you're about to go into the coffee business my friend

20:07

and if zero 400 sounds early to you you may want to think of you a morning person or are you an afternoon person

20:13

because if you know it's basic stuff but you want to think

20:18

about where you are going to you know perform better

20:24

that is brilliant advice I always share with people there's two things that

20:29

people seldom think about when you're starting a business it's the number and the type of employees that you'll have

20:35

and the hours that you're going to be open and operating and both of those will affect your life directly so you

20:42

really want to get it right you don't want to take time away from your family you want to have more time with your

20:47

family um and so if you're working if you open a business that's retail seven days a

20:52

week you know it's going to be tough to if you have small kids to you know make the soccer game and and all that kind of

20:59

stuff you got to really think those kind of things through and that's really where my kind of coaching comes in I

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just had a guy recently call me up and say um he was at a trampoline park

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um he's like oh there's like the third time I've been there every time I go the place is packed it's jamming and I'm

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like did you ever go on a Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock yeah

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yeah you're the only one on the trampoline there's no one there yeah of course the

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weekends are hopping and yeah um

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foreign of mine said to me a long time ago when I first moved to the stage she said to

21:43

me surrender she said you must you know um come into real estate and um it's

21:49

it's great and you'll be good and blah blah and I said I looked at it and I said do you have to work Saturday and

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Sunday and she went yes and I went well no

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you know I don't mind working Saturday and Sunday if it's my business do you know what I mean because you know you

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fit it in a you know as a mom you fitted in around kids hours you know on whatever else kind of thing but you know

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to be scheduled like you said retail I know I would not excel in retail you

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know so um and that's another thing that you brought up Tom you know sometimes people end up doing things that they don't necessarily want to do but it's to

22:26

pay the bills and I always say to people well as you know if you have a business idea that you don't put into play all

22:35

you are doing is making the boss or the company you're working for more money instead of making that money

22:42

for you for yourself you know oh you're building someone else's dream and that's yeah yeah you're building that wealth

22:49

yeah it's it's a shame but that's what most people do because we're taught from when we're little kids to go to school

22:55

and get a job and be happy shut up and most people wake up somewhere around 40

23:02

years old and they're like wow it's it's a midlife Awakening yeah so people are

23:07

real life crisis I think it's a good thing it's an Awakening where you say is there

23:12

something else is there more to life and yes there is and and so many people's

23:18

job chose them instead of them choosing the job and that's uh you know so many people

23:24

frustrated which leads to all sorts of negative things drinking and all that

23:29

and Drug you know like because they're unhappy and they can't put their finger on it's because you're not doing what

23:35

you were meant to do on this planet that's why now let me ask you this Tom a

23:40

couple of people that I've interviewed regarding businesses that one of their biggest hurdles has been the processes

23:48

that you go through in order to uh maybe get that small business loan

23:54

um get the legalities taken care of um your finances taken care of um and

23:59

and what they've basically said to me is it's such you really have to jump through a lot of Hoops there is a lot of

24:06

paperwork you know um and so but with franchising

24:13

the you have that support of somebody giving you guidance for you to put your

24:20

ducks in a row in regards to legalities and states business plan

24:27

projections I mean it's all it's all done yeah I mean it's not like you don't

24:33

have to do the work you have to take what's what would be a template and fill in the information as it pertains to you

24:39

and your community because you know the electric bill in one part of the country is going to be different than another so

24:46

but you have all the line items and the franchise supplies that moreover

24:52

um we have resources for financing uh to the point where if you wanted to

24:59

buy a certain franchise uh my my finance partner has money earmarked for certain

25:06

franchises where as long as you have a certain credit score and some collateral

25:12

you'll easily get a loan and and so the thing that people don't

25:18

understand I didn't understand this years ago but banks have what they call

25:23

Credit boxes which is another way of saying a goal so the quarterly goal for

25:28

this month is to do mortgages or do car loans or get more people to open up

25:35

savings accounts whatever it might be and you walk you know you walk in with a beautiful business plan and blah blah

25:40

blah oh yes we'll Finance you you have no problem they send it off to Underwriters and it comes back denied

25:48

and it's denied not because it's a bad business plan it's because their goal is to do mortgages not

25:55

business loans and so we're able to go to certain Banks all over the country

26:01

that we know are financing businesses and so we go right to the source get the

26:09

money get it done and and to say what you were saying earlier just get that mission

26:15

accomplished and we do it in very efficient and effective manner as long as the person

26:22

you know the the franchise prospective franchise owner is you know carrying the

26:28

water they need to carry do the work they need to do fill out the paperwork that's it

26:33

um you know we could get in the loans see because I remember when I had my first business 23 years ago oh my gosh

26:39

I'm older than dirt um I I remember I went down to the SBA for some crazy reason I thought that

26:47

um you know if I filled out the the check the boxes you know of being a female you know

26:54

um being you know Brown um you know I'd get something

27:04

fill out and in the end it was a hoopla and from my understanding

27:10

23 years later it's still a hoop a lot and my you know I would like to speak

27:17

with somebody um from the SBA local in regards to how they are helping

27:23

um the Vets you know um is there a special you know um what are

27:31

the guidelines for getting registered as a service you know um disabled vet-owned business you know

27:38

what are those guidelines and how do how can a service member access this information readily and easily because

27:44

it seems to be like you know um you're trying to find the treasure right right

27:50

no they make it so difficult um but because it's a bureaucracy so everything is tougher than it should be

27:58

but there is ways and and I you know offline I'll connect you with some

28:03

people that uh will be able to help you and help veterans and all your folks by

28:08

extension you might even have some of those folks on your podcast yeah I think it would be I again I do believe

28:16

that you know um people are trying to do better in getting veterans established

28:24

um you know with businesses or getting them into the workplace and providing programs there's a I'm covering a lot of

28:31

Foundations and a lot of causes that are out there um and I'm realizing you know I'm

28:37

educating myself as I do this because initially I thought why doesn't everybody just join together one big

28:43

foundation and there you go voila problem solved but as I've started to go

28:48

through I've realized that you know certain uh Charities and Foundations focus on certain skills like I just had

28:57

a wonderful tour of a facility and I have to give them a shout out workshops for warriors where they focus on

29:05

manufacturing you know because right now we've got over 800 000 jobs in the US

29:11

that um are just sitting there and we don't have skilled you know labor you

29:16

know workers to go in and fill them and so so um this Foundation is putting you

29:21

know veterans through again out the other end and I've explained this to somebody out the other end you can

29:28

create your own business right you know like trades

29:33

um I was just involved in a discussion with trades and a very smart kid he's like you know I'm going to go to trade

29:39

school gonna do my plumber stuff work for somebody for a couple years to get experience and then I'm gonna go build

29:45

something myself I mean that's great that is fantastic actually yeah

29:51

Obsession resistant it's Amazon resistant it's you know that guys that

29:56

guy will be set up and he'll command a salary that will blow your mind as a

30:02

plumber it's you know it's funny that you mentioned it's Amazon resistant because somebody else

30:08

just said to me the other day that um if you're not selling on Amazon you're not doing business and I I don't know if I

30:16

100 agree with that I mean you know you know I don't know about that because

30:22

there's some things obviously you just can't sell on Amazon um but uh yeah I mean you know there are

30:29

people out there that have got great ideas just just gotta start follow up follow through and be persistent that's

30:36

the other thing um you have to be persistent regardless of who it is you have to communicate

30:42

with you know um it's it's so stay the course yeah no

30:48

is not a no no answers yeah it's just not yet

30:54

so one last question for you and then uh we have to unfortunately break but um I

31:00

want to ask you about a myth that you might be able to break here on this show that's how I always end my shows is

31:07

there a myth about military or military spouses or military bases or something like that

31:13

pretty much it has

31:19

[Music] where do we start well I tell you um I

31:24

want to keep them I'm going to keep it above board um one of the myths that I came across

31:30

business-wise um when I initially said to spoke to somebody and I said that I am going to

31:36

open a business on base that I'm going to drop in a coffee shop on base they said to me dealing with the U.S military

31:43

in regards to doing business on military installations is a No-No

31:51

um it doesn't happen unless you are a large corporation um and you know that kind of deal

31:57

and it's a myth time because I was like a

32:02

dog with a bone and I stayed the course and I think if you dot your eyes and

32:09

cross your teeth as as in any other workplace as well put together something

32:14

that makes sense I think it's human nature almost in this day and age where people just go no I don't want it

32:20

automatically the first thing I don't want to do anything because they always think it costs them something you know

32:27

um I was persistent with the Navy Exchange command they were very very

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thorough with their background check um and with everything that they wanted um

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so it's a myth you can do business with the Navy Exchange command and you can't get onto your base but make sure that um

32:47

you have your squared away because they will look at everything good great

32:52

advice pigs surrender thank you so much for being on the franchise Academy

32:57

um it's just your insights are so great I'd love to stay in contact with you more and if someone wants to reach out

33:04

to you what's the best way to reach you they can go to my website which is thegoodshow.com you can also email me on

33:12

info at the good show um Tom I have to say it's been a pleasure it is good to it's always good

33:18

to talk with you Tom and you look great and um I'm looking forward to having you on the good show podcast I cannot wait

33:26

please give me the invite and we will do it absolutely time mission accomplished

33:32

thank you so much thank you Tom take care.

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