Welcome to the Money Tree Investing Podcast. Stock market, wealth, personal finance, value stocks, invest in your life. Hello, Smart Money Tree Podcast listeners. Welcome to this week show. My name is Kirk Chisholm. I'll be your host. And today I'm joined with John Austenson. Hey, I'm doing, John. Hey, Kirk. Excited to be here. So, John, for those of you don't know you, tell us a bit about yourself. Based here in Atlanta, Georgia, white and three kids, and stay pretty active in the community. But professionally, you know, I've been on a journey. I spent many years in a corporate role like a lot of your listeners, but then about nine years ago got involved in franchising and realized that it's much more than just fast food. And long story

short, I've invested in franchises myself. I've been on the franchisor side as well. And about seven years

ago built a consulting business that now helps others get plugged into franchises all across the country.

So I love educating and exposing people to the opportunities that exist out there in what I call non-food franchising, all these other industries, which we can jump into. What did you do prior to franchising? What was your corporate job? Yeah, I spent a couple years with Accenture and consulting, did a lot of international work. And then I had a long run with Carter's Ashkosh Begash, Children's Apparel Company and the largest one out there. And I had a great run with those guys heading up sales teams and work for the president for a period of time, which was great exposure from a public company standpoint. But then went back to grad school. And so I touched a lot of different things. And I'm very thankful for that experience. But I always had that entrepreneurial desire to do something, build my own empire instead of someone else's.

So let's talk about that because I know when people talk about investing, you can invest in

securities, you can invest in all sorts of things. There's plenty of assets to invest in.

But certainly starting a company is, it's not for everybody, but it's a great opportunity

for certainly for some.

How should people be thinking about the opportunity of franchise versus just starting their

own company? I invest in all sorts of asset classes myself. I believe it's in all of the

above approach. But business ownership does provide that tax advantage alternative investment within the portfolio.

And, you know, there are different ways to get involved in business ownership. One would be

franchising. Another, like you said, would be starting your own business. Or third, buying an

existing business is a popular idea as well. So when I compare franchising to a startup,

in franchising, I'll start by saying it's not right for everyone. Some people are too entrepreneurial. They want to put their thumbprints all over the business. But for most people, it's my humble belief that it truly is a better path to business ownership because you have a business that's already been proven out in other markets. You know, the product market fits there. You've got a playbook. It's all about going out and executing against that. You've got a franchisor on the sidelines supporting you. And not every franchisor is created equal. That's where we come in to try to help our clients identify the right ones. But a good franchisor that's supporting you as you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself. And oftentimes this gets overlooked, Kirk, but you really have a built-in mastermind of other franchisees

that are living the same thing day in, day out, in their markets, and so you're exchanging

best practices and learnings from each other.

So I like to say that it just shortcuts your path to success.

You really do start out essentially on second or third base rather than on first base.

I know there's a big push now on social media for people to start businesses,

for people to run them, to buy them. I know there's a few influencers out there who are, you know,

really big on buying existing businesses. How can people make the determination of, you mentioned

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