248: How to Build Wealth Through Non-Food Franchising
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Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast. Today we are joined by Jon Ostenson, one of the top 1% Franchise Consultants in the U.S., respected author, investor, and leading voice in the world of non-food franchising.
Jon breaks down how everyday professionals, corporate leaders, and real estate investors can use franchising to build wealth, diversify income, and create long-term stability even without quitting their day job.
In this episode, we chat about…
Jon’s career path from corporate leadership to franchise president and top franchise consultant
Why non-food franchising offers lower risk, better margins, and more stability than trendy food brands
How Jon helps clients filter through 600+ franchise options to find the best fit for their market and goals
The truth about “semi-passive” franchise ownership and what it actually requires
Why real estate investors and professionals looking for diversification are a natural fit for franchising
Key Takeaways:
Avoid Chasing Trends: Focus on non-trendy, understandable, cash-flowing service-based businesses like insulation, dumpsters, senior care, or pet grooming , as people will continue to spend on these regardless of the economy.
Franchising is a "One-Stop Shop" Discovery Process: Working with a franchise broker like Jon is entirely free , and they help filter through the "noise" by identifying top opportunities based on the strength of the franchise leadership, financial models, and competitive advantages.
Protect Your Area: Franchise brands protect owners, either through a protected radius for customer-facing retail or a defined territory (e.g., 250,000 population) for service-based businesses.
Starting a Franchise vs. Buying an Existing One: It's generally easier to start a new franchise because the most successful existing units often sell internally to other franchisees , and buying an existing non-franchise business comes with the risk of key staff/customers leaving after the sale.
Be Clear on Your Role: Understand the commitment level required. While many non-food franchises allow for an executive/semi-absentee model , Jon advises that "passive" is a misnomer, and you must be prepared to lean in if the manager isn't great.
Resources from Jon
LinkedIn | FranBridge Consulting | Download your FREE book: 'Non-Food Franchising'
Resources from Mike and Nichole
+ Read the transcript
Mike: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast. Today we have Jon Ostenson. He is a top 1% national franchise broker, investor, author, international speaker, specializing in the area. He has coined it as the ‘Non-Food Franchising’. If you know anything about restaurants and things like that, it's about as stuff as hospitality as there is. Having served as president of an Inc. 500 franchise system now as a multi-brand franchisee himself, Jon is uniquely positioned to educate others on franchising and franchise selection. How are you doing Jon?
Jon: Hey, doing great. Excited to be here, Mike.
Mike: Absolutely. So I always start out the podcast with, give us the two-minute version of who you are. I've had people go back to kindergarten and what schools they went to, and I'm like, let's just stick to who you are, what do you do? And how did you get into franchising?
Jon: Absolutely. Well, you know, like so many of your listeners, I spent many years in the corporate world and had a great run, but always had that desire to build my own empire instead of someone else's.
And got to my mid-thirties and started poking my head around and was very fortunate to actually stumble into franchising, had the opportunity to step in as president of ShelfGenie Franchise system and support all of our franchisees across North America, and really fell in love with the franchise model through that. Just saw how so many different backgrounds could come together under a shared system and we're supporting them and setting them up for success.
So fast forward, I ended up partnering with the founder of ShelfGenie. We eventually spun off, we invested in our franchises ourselves on the franchisee side.
So I've been on both sides and, you know, still a multi-brand franchisee today. But have good people running those and allow me to spend most of my time helping others, you know, through FranBridge Consulting, uh, helping others connect the dots and identify the top opportunities in their market to step into business ownership.
Mike: So let's talk about, you know, there's a couple questions. It is right off the bat that people asked me about franchises and, you know, whether it's the myths, the legends, the propaganda. There's a couple things. Number one is, I don't want to get into franchising 'cause they take all the money.
I go back to 'em. It's like, well, you're either gonna spend it on whatever, percent on franchise, or you're gonna spend hundreds of thousand dollars on your own website and your own marketing and your own, blah, blah, blah. So give our listeners a little bit of an insight of, "Yep, it's a lot better to do a franchise than the mom-and-pop start your own with the exact same concept."
Jon: You know, I'll say, and franchising's not right for everyone. You know, I've got some clients that are too entrepreneurial and they wanna put their thumbprints all over it. Franchising may not be the best path for them, but from what I've seen, the vast majority of people would benefit from the structure of a good franchise system and not every franchise system is created equal. Just like any industry. You've got strong players that provide great support. You've got others that don't, and that's where we come in to help our clients identify the top ones. But you know, with the franchise, you are paying a royalty fee back to the franchise.
I mean, that goes with the territory, but as you said, a lot of times that covers expenses that you would be incurring yourself if you were to just start up a business on your own. And there's also the intangible benefit that you're paying for in that. You're essentially starting on third base. You know, others have had learnings and made mistakes, and here you're entering into a community of other owners running the same business day in, day out that you're learning from.
You're also got that coach on the sidelines and that franchisor that's supporting you with their team, and again the goal is that you make a far less mistakes than you would otherwise. And oftentimes those are costly, both tangibly as well as intangibly 'cause it takes time to, to learn from those. So, even your marketing, having that more optimized on day one because you're learning from the ramp up in other cities that it can now be employed in yours.
So, again, every franchise system there, there are ones that are absolutely worth what you're paying in the royalty, but then there will be some that aren't and that's where we come in to try to help.
Mike: Okay, so you're coming in trying to help, you have the background you experience.
I think we talked on before we started recording, I mean, how many of those franchise different companies that you represent, and talk to us a little bit about the benefits of, you know, day one, what do you do to help them? It's like, well, I'll just, you know, go on super cuts.com and do a franchise or whatever. What is the difference?
Jon: Yeah, you can certainly Google around and you know, what you're gonna find is there's a lot of noise out there. Every company's putting their best marketing foot forward, and even if you come across a Top 100 Franchise List from a publication, most of those companies are actually paying to be on that list. It's a PR move. So again, just a lot of noise. Work, and I won't try to give a sales pitch here, but I will just say, working with us, it's entirely free. We simply get a referral fee from the brand on the back end. None of that's passed on to our clients. So it is very much like a real estate model.
I'm a real estate broker, but for franchises and we're affiliated with IFPG, largest franchise brokerage in the country. I work with over 600 different franchise companies that are looking to expand. At any given time, Mike, I mean, there's probably 60 or 70 that I feel strongest about.
Again, just looking through those lenses of my background, I'm looking at the strength of the franchise leadership team, looking at the financial models, the competitive advantages, what are current owners and their systems saying about their experience so far. So, you know, there's a little bit of science, a little bit of art to it, and we're bringing all that to pass as well as our client's background and what could be a good fit for their situation.
Mike: You know what I see? It is funny when I see that there's something hot coming on, everyone's getting into it, and then within five or six years it's kind of gone away. You start seeing these CBD franchises coming on and all of a sudden there's way too many on the block or there's way too many of these on the block. How important is it to have some kind of an area protection within that franchise? Does that exist with some of those? So that, let's say you have whatever franchise and then two blocks down the road there's another, the exact same thing. You know, kind of like you have the Starbucks model with there's one on every block. How important is it to kind of have some type of protection there?
Jon: Yeah, so within a franchise brand, if it's a customer-facing retail location, you're gonna have a protected radius around that. If it's more of a service-based business out in the field. Then you have what's called a territory, and that might be 250,000 a population, a franchisor helps to find that and oftentimes people will purchase multiple territories in order to scale. But no, kind of getting back to the theme you're mentioning, I focused on all the industries outside of food. I've cut out half the market. I focus on non-food and it's things like home and property services, health and wellness categories like kids, pet, seniors, things that are understandable, cash flowing businesses that people will continue to spend on, regardless of the economy. We're not chasing the latest trend because our clients want non-trendy oftentimes, in some cases, non-sexy, you know?
Mike: Yeah.
Jon: In food, you can do well in food in some cases for sure. We've got nothing against those guys, but they're easier ways to make money. And I always point to frozen yogurt. Froyo was big until it wasn't, right? And so, that's what came to mind when you started talking about something going out the aisle. And so we like things like insulation and dumpsters and flooring and senior, youth soccer and pet grooming, things that people will always spend on.
Mike: And I think that's fantastic. If you can do any type of that service industry, plumbing, electrical, construction, any of those types of things, I know someone that owns, I don't know, 10 or 15 like UPS stores.
Jon: Yeah.
Mike: She does extremely well because there are small businesses that need the PO boxes. They can always ship and receive, you know, those types of things, but it's like, how many of us used to see Orangetheory's and you don't see Orangetheory, you know that much anymore. The Jamba, you know, the different juices that were trendy and they go away.
How important is it when you do a franchise? Because I'll see a franchise open up in A+ district and I'm going, "Wow, they're gonna have to sell like a million cupcakes to pay that rent for some cupcake or bundt cake franchise normally going, do they not realize that their rent is so high?"
Is that something that you help them with? It's like, "You know what? Great franchise, let's go maybe a mile away from downtown Scottsdale or these type of things where just rents are astronomical." Do you help in that aspect too?
Jon: So we're flying a little bit higher, maybe 30,000 feet. We're helping our client identify, "Hey, given your background, what you've shared with us based on what we're seeing in the market, and we do a lot of placements out there. Here are the Top 10 opportunities that are available currently in your market." Touching on different industries, different price points, trying to give them some good variety. They'll usually choose three or four to then have a conversation with, we hold their hand through this whole discovery process, and during that process, you're learning that business, but you're also getting to talk to other franchisees in the system and asking them questions, hearing about their experience to your question on the location.
So the franchise order is gonna be able to say, "Hey, here's who our competition is." Oftentimes it's a fragmented space. Maybe it's a mom-and-pop type operation, you know that you're competing with. Here's how we compete against those. As you get further along, you get serious about a brand. I say, "Hey, let's do some secret shopping."
Go out and visit the competition or maybe have them come give you a quote if it's that type of business. But again, they're getting to talk to other franchisees and similar type markets to hear about their experience. And then the franchisor does have the information typically at the zip code level, the demographic information to say, "Hey, here's where we've seen success. Let's identify these locations." If it's a physical, customer-facing location, they're going to work with a local real estate firm to then identify the top spots for that business with the right adjacencies in the retail center; half of our clients never get into a retail setup. It's more of a service-based business out there in the field where you don't have that retail storefront.
Mike: Yeah. That makes a good point 'cause yeah, it doesn't matter how the economy is, if your toilet's plugged up or your AC goes out, you will call them. That's why maybe within the franchise, you do the pay now or pay in payments, and make another type of income on the side by having them pay monthly or something like that. As an entrepreneur I'm like going, "Okay, how can I get this and then add this and then add a couple other things."
And speaking of that, I was looking at your one sheet that says, why are real estate investors like myself a great fit for a franchise?
Jon: Yeah. Probably 2/3 of our clients invest in real estate as well. I personally do both actively as well as through syndications and I'm an all of the above kind of guy when it comes to that. I believe that for several reasons. One, it last couple years, you know, we've had higher interest rates, lower inventory on average, fewer deals to be had.
And so we are seeing some real estate investors say, "Hey, what else is out there that also offers tax benefits?" You know, a lot of them have a W-2. They like the idea of the tax benefits that come with real estate. Obviously business ownership opens up a whole nother playbook of tax possibilities.
So I'd say, partly the mindset, but partly maybe someone's got some single family homes and they're saying, I'm already paying for all these other services. What if I became the guy that does the cabinets and I can do the cabinets for all my friends and kind of create another income stream or property management.
I mean, we've got a lot of real estate professionals that will get into property management through franchising as a good bolt-on. So, oftentimes it's complimentary businesses. Sometimes it's a way to diversify as well.
Mike: Yeah. Now, talk about numbers. There's a lot of franchises. I'm not gonna be devil's advocate, but a little bit, I knew someone that was in the food and we'll talk about why you don't like food. She owned a couple Subway franchises. She wanted to expand. She wasn't big enough 'cause this great location opened up. Well, the guy who had 20 of them would always be selected over her and she couldn't actually make any money by only having two.
So what type of franchises are there? It's like going, "You know what? There's so much different competition." Some franchises say, "Hey, I can make some money by owning just one or two." But then some you have to just the numbers don't work. You have to own 5 or 10 of the franchises around the area to actually quit your day job. What do you see and how can you talk about that? Where you have to have a whole area or a lot of.
Jon: If it's a service-based business population, 250,000, defining a territory, I'd say in that case, most of our clients, probably 2/3 of our clients, will buy two or three or even more territories out of the gate to give themselves a path to scale. Some will buy just one, and then of course you've got physical location, retail franchises, and again, some will buy just once. Some will buy multi-territory. Something that's very common within franchising is what I call Internal M&A. And that's the idea that when someone goes to sell.
They're likely gonna get bought by other franchisees. That's why you don't see more franchises on the open market because they never hid it because another franchisee buys them. So you can't have that kind of organic growth take place. I'd say in some of, you know, in food, you do hear the stories and you've got private equity getting involved and they've got 130 Wendy's or I just have some clients that stole 12 McDonald's recently.
It's common in food to have a whole lot of locations. I'd say in some of these other industries, it's less common. The most you might have is like five or seven, or, I did have clients buy 10 trampoline parks recently that was a big, big investment. They bought 10 of those and they're scaling up over time. But for most people, when you look at the franchise fee and the startup cost and several months of working capital all built in. As an investment, oftentimes you're in the $200,000 to $400,000 ballpark. That's where a lot of things are falling. So again, it just kind of opens up people's eyes when they understand that and the fact there are a lot of ways to finance it and get involved as well.
It's not just a cash play.
Mike: And you know, when I was looking at a franchise, there is a way, and you kind of hit on it. Let's say that I'm someone's East Coast franchise, Midwest franchise. They're trying to open up more in the southwest. I look at it and say, or I go to Jon and say, "Hey, I like this franchise," but for a fee or an extra cost, I can actually buy a territory, right?
Or an area to kind of protect myself, and then I have the first rights to open up those different locations. Is that how it works?
Jon: The area developer arrangement, I'd say is less common. Some brands will do that, but I'd say more common would be the idea of opening up several territories. So you know, they're in Scottsdale. Maybe that's a two territory market. And you know, if you're really looking to go big, maybe you buy some space in Phoenix as well, let's say. A lot of our clients, what they'll do there, there's several ways they give themselves optionality. Either they can, because the other territories around them may get bought down the road.
That's the risk they run and, but they can either buy other franchisees that may or may not be an option. They can buy other franchise brands. Of course they can always start a non-franchise as well. But a lot of our clients will come back and buy additional franchises. And I had some clients in Boise recently that in the home senior care business, they bought through us and they came back after a little while and said, "Jon, what's a good bolt-on business to this that utilizes our team and, or at least our customer base."
And I introduced them to a franchise that provides wheelchair ramps and stair lifts and, you know, retrofitting mobility solutions for your bathroom and your showers and such. And they said, "That's a great compliment to our core business and ultimately move forward with that." So, you can find those adjacencies property services is a great example where a lot of businesses, hey, if you're already outside doing the pool cleaning and you're over there on a weekly basis, you might as well add a high-margin opportunity, whether it be mosquito spray or lawn fertilization or something along those lines.
Mike: Talk to us about the importance to know, I'm not gonna mention who, but someone close to me by the pool cleaning franchise. She was white collar, used to working with people, and made a lot of money. All of a sudden she's working with pool boys and she's like, "I can't handle these people. They just don't show, or they do this, and then now they're hitting on people." You know, it didn't last long. She lost a lot of money. It didn't last more than four months before she was like going, "This is nuts."
When you talk to people, these are who your employees are going to be. If it's that type of a service thing, or it's gonna be white collar, just the expectations of what you're actually getting into. And other than, "Hey, I think it'd be cool to own this type of franchise."
Jon: You know, I've got some clients that say, "Hey, we've got some background in working with blue collar workers and we don't wanna do it again or we are okay with it." Most people, though oftentimes, don't have a lot of experience there and they say, "Hey, we need something that's more white collar, more B2B services."
That's our background. Everyone wants the highest return on investment. Fiercest number of employees. Yeah. Welcome to business ownership, right? I mean, in most cases you have to have some level of employees though not every opportunity. But there are different types of employees.
You know, a lot of times if they are going multi-territory, what they'll do is they'll put a manager in place and about half of our clients will put a manager in place on day one. It is called the semi-passive, semi-absentee executive model. I like to call it semi-involved because you're still gonna be involved. I think passive is a misnomer. Now, especially early on, you're rolling up your sleeves now if you have a great manager, it can really run itself. I mean, oftentimes, I mean that you've got the franchise or supporting that manager on a day-to-day basis for you, but if you don't have a great manager, you're gonna find yourself leaning in.
I just always want people to go in eyes wide open to that, because I think some people sugarcoat it.
Mike: Yeah.
Jon: As they go through and then they're like, "Wait a minute. No, this is real work."
If it was easy, everyone would be a business owner, right? It does take extra work but there is that potential for outsized returns in addition to building an asset that you can sell one day in addition to the tax benefits.
Mike: So when people go to everybody, Jon Ostenson, franbridgeconsulting.com. When they go to your website, what are they gonna find and how do they get information, educational materials? How do they contact you? If I click on it right now, what am I gonna see?
Jon: And come out to our website first, you'll get a popup, offering you a free downloadable copy of 'Non-Food Franchising', 90 pages, easy to read, packed with a ton of content in there. Most people read that by the time we get on the phone. So I highly recommend that as a first step. But no, share your email address. We'll certainly add you to our newsletter list where we share a lot of information every month. On the website, you'll see some client testimonials, you'll understand the process.
Some thoughts on franchising. If you click on the second tab, you'll see other podcast appearances and articles and just really trying to get you a lot of information again, to kind of get the juices flowing and help you understand what's out there and what next steps would look like.
Mike: And what are the next steps?
I'm sure they have a consultation and then what are these steps and how long do you think it takes?
Jon: Yeah. Great question.
Mike: I talked to Jon. How long is it before I open up?
Jon: So we'll jump on our first call. We'll cover a lot on that call. And I wanna get to know you and make sure I understand your situation and then I'll come back to you a few days later with the opportunities.
And again, we look at a large array of different types of businesses, different industries. I wanna give you a good lay of the land, and it can be an iterative process from there. I mean, we may pull in other opportunities, but what I found is this gives us a really good starting point. So the goal there would be, after we review these, let's identify three or four to then have a conversation with.
That's where the magic starts happening. When you have real conversations about real opportunities, you start to crystallize in your mind, here are the characteristics I like in a business or don't like, and you give that feedback to me. So, I'd say from the first call with the franchisor till you're at the point of signing the franchise agreement.
It's typically around two months, give or take. I just had a client last week move through it in 28 days. It really depends on someone's schedule and bandwidth, but if you wanna move through it fast, you can take some more time, but probably two months. And from there, you know, there's gonna be some degree of training. If it's a retail location, there will be site selection and build out branches are largely handled a lot of that for you. But all throughout the discovery process, when you're getting information from the franchisor, talking to other franchisees, I'm kind of holding your hand through that process and we're getting on touch base calls and serving as a sounding board.
And like I said, we can always iterate as needed. We've got funding resources, partners, so we can pull in, if you wanna have a franchise attorney review the agreement. We've got those partnerships kind of a one stop shop for your franchise discovery process.
Mike: And within that process they'll tell you, my wife was looking at this high-end pet grooming spa chandeliers, the whole perfect for Scottsdale, right? But they required the franchisee to actually work in the business full time. What is the percentage, do you think, where the franchise or goes, you gotta work in it for at least a year?
Jon: I'd say in the food space, it's a little more common early on until you really build that credibility and have a large number of units.
With those that work without the 600 different companies that are in expansion mode, I'd say probably 75% allow for that executive model and 25% require that you work in the business now. For those 75%, they would love for you to work in the business, right? I mean, no one's gonna ramp up a business like the guy with the skin in the game, right?
But they understand that to get the best people, oftentimes those best people can't give it their full-time focus. They can only give it part-time. They trust those people will put a good manager in place.
Mike: So we gotta ask you a question. We keep hearing about non-food. Why?
Jon: Hey, I've got nothing against the food guys. I've got a lot of friends on that side of the aisle and we certainly need them and support them, but my humble belief is there are easier ways to make money. You know, opportunities that may require fewer operating hours, less employees, in some cases, less hourly employees. Less trendy like we talked about. Maybe higher margins 'cause you don't have the food waste and And less CapEx on the front-end too. So, again, yeah, we need the food guys, but there are a lot of other paths to make money out there.
Mike: And all of us that have, it's one of the things is, you know, with my hotels that offer free breakfast, I'm like, I'm spending, you know, $70,000 more a month on the free breakfast.
And it's hard 'cause then you get the one-star reviews. Say, you know what? They only had two meat options and the last hotel I stayed in, I'm going, you know, get your free breakfast, get out of my hotel. You know, so it is hard, especially, you know, different costs, it's just, you know, skyrocketing.
In the book, 'Non-Food Franchising', they talked to us a little bit about what they're gonna find when they read it.
Jon: We cover some client case studies, we talk about different industries, we talk about what can be made financially and there we give some examples. We talk about the funding options. We talk about the FDD, the franchise disclosure document and how to interpret that and then we talk about franchising.
We have a chapter on franchising versus startups. The pros and cons, franchising versus entrepreneurship through acquisition. The idea of buying an existing business and the pros and cons, oftentimes people overlook. So yeah, try to pack as much content into 90 pages to make it an easy read. And yeah, it's been out there for two and a half years.
You've gotten great feedback.
Mike: Is it easier to buy an existing franchise or start one yourself?
Jon: I'd say start one yourself to buy an existing franchise again, the good ones oftentimes get bought by other franchisees in the system, so they never even hit the open market. Now, the idea of buying an existing business out there, it could be a great proposition, but every day I talk to clients that have been looking for three years, four years, five years, trying to find that business.
They've been under LOI, five times, someone outbid them. The due diligence didn't shake out, and even if they do find one, there's risk in that they're paying a premium for the business because it's cash flow and it's got a team in place. Well, whenever you have a change in ownership, oftentimes there's some disruption and key members of the team may leave the next day, right? Or key customers. And so here you paid a premium. So to me, there's risk inherent there. The oftentimes people overlook, whereas with a franchise, you've gotta establish a system that you can put your thumbprints on from day one and kind of make it, take it, make it your own team.
Mike: Yeah. That's a great point you made.
A buddy of mine bought a business, a 20 year general manager. The owner sold it, and wanted to start something else. Well, they didn't tell him that the GM was going to go and a couple other employees. They kinda left that out. So day one, all of a sudden they got resignations and then he had to start basically on his own.
You know, it's just one of those risks that you take. Jon, how can people find you? Other than, you know, franbridgeconsulting.com what are some other ways to get a hold of you?
Jon: Yeah, the social platform I'm most active on is LinkedIn. We put some content out there every day, on a regular basis.
Again, if you wanna come out to franbridgeconsulting.com, share your email address, I'll share a downloadable copy of the book. If you'd like to take the next step, again, it's entirely free, book a call with us and we would love to jump on a phone and help in any way I can.
Mike: Is there anything else that perhaps I didn't hit on that you'd like to tell our audience?
Jon: No, I think we covered the gamut there. I'd say, we're seeing more and more interest. I mean, I've never seen so much interest. If you look at business applications in Google searches, they're near an all-time high.
I mean, during the pandemic there was a spike, but we're seeing that same spike now, and I think for a variety of reasons. There's no downside to dipping a toe in the water. I'd encourage people to get off the couch and 90% of our clients end up getting involved in something that was in an industry, never on their radar. So yeah. Until you get in the game and you dunno what's out there.
Mike: Absolutely. You know, the richest people that I know are manufacturing or have something that I'm like going, "Really?" And what kind of grease, fat something or other, you know, they're the largest in the nation. I'm like, "Oh. Unbelievable."
But you know, so it doesn't have to be sexy people, it just has to have cash flow, right? Jon, it's been a pleasure having you on and everybody, Jon Ostenson, franbridgeconsulting.com, and all of you that are thinking, especially those in tech, there's a lot of layoffs now.
Don't wait until you get laid off or wait until you get fired. If you're thinking about it, there's a chance and you maybe think, "Hey, you know, what can I do next? I'm getting tired of working for the man or the woman."
And perhaps franchises are the way to go. Jon, thank you so much for coming on The Richer Geek Podcast. Have a wonderful day.
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ABOUT JON OSTENSON
Jon Ostenson is a top 1% Franchise Consultant in the U.S. and a leading voice in non-food franchising. A multi-brand franchisee himself, he spends most of his time helping others build wealth through business ownership. Before launching FranBridge, Jon served as President of ShelfGenie and spent 15 years in corporate leadership, including as VP of Sales at Carter’s Inc. He began his career at Accenture and now serves on the Entrepreneurs Organization board while supporting several nonprofits. Jon holds BBA and MBA degrees from the University of Georgia and lives in Atlanta with his wife and three children.