BizGrowMojo Episode 3 – Ron Silberstein

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Welcome to the Biz Grow Mojo podcast. The podcast where we get into real talk

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about business ownership, growth, marketing, learning lessons, and advice with real business owners. Here’s your

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host, Ryan Amen. Now, let’s get down to business.

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I’m pumped to get this rolling. Let’s go.

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In this episode, we talk with Ron Silberstein, a seasoned accountant with deep expertise in both professional services and the franchise world. Ron

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shares some of the biggest breakthroughs that helped him grow his business along with marketing strategies that work for professional service-based businesses

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like his. Then, we dive into how he and his team are building an entirely new industry with huge potential, cannabis

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lounges. You’ll hear how his expert group is helping the right entrepreneurs buy into this unique franchise opportunity, who’s a good fit, and what

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it takes to succeed. All right. Well, good to have you on this morning, Ron. I appreciate you

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hopping on here and uh telling us a little bit about your your story, how you got into what you’re doing and the

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opportunity that you have. I’m looking forward to talking about both, but let’s just start, you know, a little bit with

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um you know, what you do now. How did you get into what you’re doing now? And could you tell us a little bit more

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about that? Sure. Uh and uh happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Uh so what I do now

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I’m a CPA and still do some CPA work uh

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working with small business clients uh in the franchise world for the most part

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but also with some individual businesses uh of different types. And then uh I

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also prepare tax returns for a couple of tax controversy law firms. They work

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with uh individuals and businesses that

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are behind in their tax return filings and or uh in trouble with the IRS or

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state taxing authorities. And then I also am an entrepreneur and have a a

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franchise business called Buds Place where we’re we’re a franchiseor of social cannabis consumption lounges. Uh

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we’re working on getting our first lounge open right now. Uh it’s a brand

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new industry. There are very few actual licensed consumption lounges open in the

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US. So we think there’s a huge opportunity to uh help start a new industry in the US, help create jobs,

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help people make money uh as franchises in our system. And then uh it’s

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something also that can be expanded internationally once we get going. So cannabis

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uh is a very interesting industry. It’s about 30 billion right now in legal sales in the US while being federally

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illegal. So some states you have legalized cannabis in various forms and

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have legalized consumption lounges, but uh it’s still illegal federally. So that

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brings on a lot of issues that most uh standard type of businesses don’t have.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And I think this is going to be probably the most interesting part of of the conversation

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for sure. But before we get too deep into the the cannabis opportunity there, um tell us a little bit more about like

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how you got into your accounting business and especially how you started with franchises. I think that’s a a

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pretty interesting um you know angle there that you you focus on. Yeah, it uh

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you know so when I went I went to college, majored in accounting at the University of Michigan and I wanted to

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be an accountant because growing up one of my dad’s best friends was a CPA

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and you know he was a nice guy, a fun guy, interesting guy, uh had a nice

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lifestyle uh you know and it was kind of something that uh intrigued me and uh you know the

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accounting world back then uh there were you know there were a lot of jobs available you’d work hard but you had a

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path to uh advancing and then you know potentially having your own firm and

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your own clients. So, I went to college, majored in accounting, passed the CPA

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exam when I got out, and uh enjoyed what I was doing. You know, you were

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Yeah. You know, kind of like what you do. You’re working with a lot of different businesses and helping them be more

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successful. Well, that’s what accountants do, too. And you know, you’re working with businesses. You learn how to research

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all the rules out there. Uh you help keep them out of trouble. they have things that they have to do, you know,

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like uh they need financial statements, they need to file tax returns, they need

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information to run their business better. So, you’re helping them, you know, so it’s

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really about helping people, helping businesses. So, I started out that way and that kind of ties in, you know, to

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the Buzzplay stuff now is we’re helping people uh we’re helping cannabis users,

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we’re helping individuals that want to become franchises and get into business

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for themselves. So, it’s really all related, all interrelated,

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and you build up that experience, uh, you know, when you’re helping people and

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helping businesses, and it helps in a lot of other areas as well. There’s a lot of joy in in, you know, helping

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other business owners. I love the concept of self-employment and I like helping people get there and better

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their current position in it. You know, that I get a lot of joy out of that. It sounds like you do as well. Um, what’s

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different about accounting for franchises versus just a a regular um,

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you know, small business that’s that’s not a franchise? Yeah, great question. Uh so much of it

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is the same with franchises and with franchises and franchiseors but there

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are some things that are different. So franchising itself has a few different

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accounting rules and revenue recognition rules. Uh and they may have rules in

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their franchise agreement if you’re a franchisee that spells out you know the kind of information that you have to

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provide to your franchiseor and how often you have to provide it. So some

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some systems it’s uh you know give us your annual financial statements, we

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have to have your tax return by such and such a date. Uh you have to pay your royalties every so often you know which

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is usually a percentage of sales but there can be different methods of uh

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calculating and paying royalties on you to the franchiseor. So uh you know so

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the accountant has to really understand you know franchising has to know where

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to look and uh the franchise agreement you know for the respon which spells out

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the responsibilities of the franchiseor and the responsibilities of the franchisee. Uh one client of mine has to

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provide monthly financials in a specific format to their franchiseor.

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uh and you know in addition to paying royalties every week and other fees they may have to pay on a weekly basis uh

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every system is different as far as uh you know timing of payments. Some with

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all the technology out there now. Some franchiseors take royalties every day out of their

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franchisees bank account, you know, where they can go into the software, see what the sales were the day before, and

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then they just draft the royalties right out of the account. When I got started in franchising

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uh with Proolf, it was Pro Golf of America, which was a franchiseor of golf

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retail stores. And uh you know basically this was before there was all this

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technology out there and uh the franchisees every month they sent us a

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report of what their sales were the month before and sent us a check for the royalties.

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uh technology has really taken over now in the way most franchiseors work with

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their franchises. But uh back then it was send us a report uh every month,

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send us a check for your royalties, uh send us your tax return at the end of

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the year within so many days after your year end. And uh we had audit rights.

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Most franchiseors have audit rights where they can go in and audit a franchisee to make sure they’re

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reporting everything properly and complying with the contract. But uh

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you know that’s how it was on the franchise side when I got in into that.

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And on the CPA side, it’s really, you know, knowing what what the rules are that relate to franchise franchises and

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franchise accounting so that you can do everything with your client that’s within the the proper rules and and you

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know, and then it still gets to the help keep them out of trouble with the IRS, help keep them out of trouble with the

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states, and uh help keep them out of trouble with their franchiseor.

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Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, so, you know, thinking back to, you know,

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when you got kind of got going in your own business, uh, you know, what were some of the early wins and breakthroughs

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that you had that, um, you know, felt like you really got you moving in the right direction to to be successful in

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your business? Yeah. So, you know, after

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after I got around to starting my own CPA firm, I mean, that’s when really the

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winds started happening. And it was you there’s a lot of you have to be kind

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of uh a freethinker to to build your own

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business in anything. Absolutely. And when you’re getting into uh the world of being, you know, a

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trusted professional advisor, and this kind of goes for, you know, the medical profession, the legal profession, the

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accounting profession, uh there’s a lot of people in those professions that are

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really, really good at what they do, but don’t know how to sell. And you know,

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you may you may have a you know, there’s a big joke about medical doctors and the way they invest and things like that

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that they may be great doctors, but they don’t know a lot about running a business or investing money or things

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like that. So, the smart most of the smart ones team up, build a team of

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people that they can count on, uh, you know, and that’s what we want as an accountant. We want you to be free and,

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you know, spend most of your time running your business. Yeah. And working on your business, uh,

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working in your businesses if you have to and not worrying. We don’t want the

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clients spending a lot of time doing accounting or bookkeeping or things like that because that’s usually not the best

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use of their time. I suppose they they put a team together, you know, including people like you and me, you know,

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marketing and advertising and promotional people to help them grow. But, uh, we want them

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doing what they’re good at and and focusing on their business and not having to worry about their accounting

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and tax stuff. And, you know, leave that to us and let us uh let us give them

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data that helps them understand how things are going with their business so

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they can make good decisions in running their business because that that part is really up to them, not up to me. But uh

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you know as you know like like you as a marketing person or PR person you see

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things that work for clients and for different kinds of businesses. You see things that don’t work. And that’s what

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we do too. We we see things that work. We see things that don’t work. We see the mistakes that are made by other

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businesses. uh you know or we hear about them when we go to seminars and conferences and that that lets us give

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that info to our clients so that they can make more money or they can lose less money or they can make wise

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business decision. That’s where that trusted advisor, you know, aspect really really

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comes into play. And I think I share that same philosophy. You know, that’s what we want. It’s what I want my

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clients to be able to do is focus on, you know, running their business and building their business and not have to

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worry about uh all the other things. There’s so many things as a business owner, you know, I mean, the accounting,

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the the marketing, and just so many other aspects. It’s just so much to to try to tackle and like you said, you

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need a good team of professionals to help you with those things or you know you get buried in in all the minute

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details and you don’t get the chance to build your business and I think every business needs somebody champion

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championing building it you know or it’s just not going to grow right so that’s uh you know that’s where

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the CPAs come in that’s where the business attorneys come in that’s where you know the marketing people come in

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It’s taking that load off the shoulders of the client uh so that they can really

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focus on everything that they’re really good at and leave some of the rest of it

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to us and really not uh an expense of the business. It’s uh as far as my fees

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go or your fees would go. It’s an investment that they’re making business

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off. Right. I mean Right. Yeah. Um, so as an accountant in in your

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own business, what’s been some of the biggest challenges that you’ve faced with, you know, getting to that next

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level? Yeah. So, it’s uh

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there there’s many that think it’s uh solely a relationship business when

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you’re an accountant and that you know, you get a client uh whether it’s a friend or just somebody you were able to

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pick up as a new client and you do good work for them and keep them out of

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trouble and, you know, get everything filed on time and stuff like that. and that they’ll be with you forever. So, I

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used to think that, you know, when I was younger and maybe more naive and then,

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you know, you do great work for a client, save them a lot a lot of money, keep them out of

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trouble, they’re making a ton of money, and then, you know, you get that call one day or that letter one day, uh, hey,

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I found a new accountant. You I’m switching accountants. Please give them all your records. you know, thanks for

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everything you did for me. Goodbye. And uh so I kind of got a little jaded after

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that and it’s like, wait a minute, you know, what did I do wrong?

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Where did I mess up here? Why am I losing this client that, you know, that

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had a lot of value to that I saved a lot of money way over and above, you know, the fees that they were paying me? you

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kind of learn that uh maybe it’s not such a relationship

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business, you know, because you always have things going on with their business, especially, you know, in the

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last 10 or 15 years, you’ve had uh a lot of corporate downsizing, a lot of

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acquisitions uh made. So, you can always lose a client that way when they get acquired by somebody else who has their

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own accountant. Uh, you know, years ago, we had a client that was, uh, it was a

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franchiseor of Healthy Pizza, uh, healthy pizza restaurants, and they

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had some big-time investors in that company. Uh, Mark Cuban was an investor

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in that. Wow. Robert Craft, uh, and the New England Patriots owner, uh, was an investor in

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that company. And you know, lo and behold, uh, after a couple years of

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working with them, Mark Cuban got more involved with them and he ended up switching their audit work. We were

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their auditors for the franchise company to his auditors in Dallas. And you know,

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that kind of stuff, there’s nothing you can do. And so, you kind of learn uh

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that clients come and go for whatever reasons. Uh just like with, you know,

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with regular businesses, you can have some great customers and then boom, they get acquired uh and the company that

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acquired them has other suppliers that do the same thing you do. So they clients

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and they’re gone. So what what I learned and it took a while but what I learned

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was that you always need a pipeline there of new clients and that it also learned that it’s kind

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of uh that it may be very treacherous to

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have one big client, you know, and some little clients because if that big

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client goes, then you’re in trouble and you’re upside down. Yeah. Yeah. And uh you know the other

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challenge as an accountant and with with an accounting firm is they used to look

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down upon advertising and in many cases there were rules against advertising.

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Oh wow. In the accounting profession. So uh that made it difficult back then you know to

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have that pipeline of new clients in the work. At least you couldn’t advertise to

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get them. So, you needed to figure out other ways. And that’s where we really

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learned uh how to get new clients. And for us, the

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best way to get new clients before we were advertising or able to advertise

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was to build up uh a big ba a good solid base of referral sources. And for me, my

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mindset totally changed because it it became where while you the clients we

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had at the firm, you know, were our clients were my clients if I brought them in.

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My focus really turned away from being, you know, the accountant who provided

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great service and reasonable fees to my clients to the person that was focused

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on properly taking care of my referral sources. because uh in many cases once I

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started focusing on the referral sources by the time a potential client talked to

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me they were really not potential client anymore. They were a client. They had

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already been sold on me by somebody else and you know sold on me and sold on our

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firm. So that when they were calling me about doing their work,

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uh, I really didn’t have to do any selling, you know, I just had to communicate

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properly and be understanding when I was talking to them and find out what their issues were and why they were looking

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for an accountant or why they were interested in in changing accountants.

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And that’s a great position, but they were already sold. And so at our firm,

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we didn’t have any fancy brochures. We didn’t have to prepare, you know, 20page

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proposal agreements, uh, showing everything we could do for them and then

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go back and forth and negotiate and wait for them to decide to hire us. for the most part, by the time they were talking

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to us, they were ready to sign an agreement and hire us and pay us a

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retainer, uh, and things like that. So, it really made things a lot easier for us once we

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figured out who we needed to focus on, how to do it, what the referral sources

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were looking for for their clients and try to get an understanding before we

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even talked to the prospect by, you know, by by talking to the referral source. We also had to educate referral

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sources on how to sell us to their clients and what to say. Uh but but

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everything made it way easier on us to get new

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clients because by the time we were talking to most of the prospects, they

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weren’t really I mean they weren’t cold prospects. They were hot and just waiting to get moving

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with us. It’s it’s such a different conversation when people come to you versus when you’re beating on their door

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and they don’t know who you are versus when somebody’s given a good word for you know what you can do. It’s just a

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completely different conversation. Um tell us a little bit more about what you

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did with like how you developed those referral sources and maybe you know what some of those were if you don’t mind sharing.

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Sure. Uh so we did uh a lot of audits of

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small public companies and also some franchise companies and the way the

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referral sources were developed and that that part takes some time to develop

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them. So uh you know and we were really focused then on the attorneys as the referral

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sources. So it was, you know, we went to

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conferences, uh, you know, SEC conferences,

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uh, franchise conferences, and weworked with the attorneys that were there at

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the conference. And weworked with, you know, at both the franchise companies,

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almost all of them have franchise attorneys who are looking for good

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accountants and auditors to refer their clients to. And you know, and the flip

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side of that is they’re also looking for people to refer them business. So, it’s

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uh yeah, and sometimes you have to be the one, you know, doing the referring first uh to get the referrals back from

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them. But, uh it’s really just being willing to help, being willing to take

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phone calls from people that just help them out, not charge for every second

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that you spend on the phone, you know. So, attorneys knew they could call us at

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any time if they had a question, an accounting question or a tax question related to one of their clients, even if

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that client wasn’t my client yet. And, you know, to pick my brain and uh, you

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know, so we set time aside for that. And that’s really, you know, any

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professional, not any professional, but most people with their own business need to set time

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aside for building up that pipeline of potential new clients and realizing that

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you’re not going to always get paid for that time at the time, but it’s an investment in

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the long term. And some things you’re going to spend the time and and and not get paid for, but uh hopefully,

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you know, down the road those uh you know, it pays off and that and you get the return on that investment. And by we

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focused on our referral sources that way on letting them know we were always here for them if they had any questions or

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needed help on anything or wanted us to look at something to make sure their client was doing it properly. And for us

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that turned into, you know, a lot of referrals from those professionals and

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and some of the referrals we got were from other accountants that realized

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they could trust us if they were doing the accounting for their their client and if they were doing the tax returns

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for that client, but if they needed audited financial statements, for example, that that firm didn’t do audits

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mainly maybe, so they wanted somebody else to do the audit for their client and take good care of their client, but

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it was still their client for the other things that person or business needed. And you know, so yeah, and trust doesn’t

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get built up overnight. So, it all just takes time, but it’s part of, you know,

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having that as your mission to get get in with some good referral

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sources, uh, you know, and figure out what you need to do or what they would want from you

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to be able to refer you business. And then once you’ve produced, you know, once you’ve done real good work for

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their clients, now those clients become referral sources. the attorneys and

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everyone in their firm becomes referral sources. And then when the attorneys in

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that firm may move on to a different firm or start their own firm, now they’re still a referral source.

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Yeah. So, it kind of snowballs. Yeah. Yeah. I keep hearing these these recurring themes. It’s like, you know,

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network like crazy. Um, you know, be willing to help people um and become an

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authority in some way. And it looks like you did it through the referral avenue. Um, you know, but those those three

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things I just I keep hearing from successful business owners that that’s like, you know, some of the key

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foundations of how they really got into a good position of success. Yeah. It’s uh kind of like if if if

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you’re in a niche, uh do whatever you can to be able to

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promote yourself as as an expert or even better have other people promote you as

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an expert. uh you know because yeah you know you can toot your own horn. Uh if

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you’re if you’re the only one tooting it though uh it becomes more difficult

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uh you know and your expertise can be questioned a little bit more by

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prospects than if if you have a network of other people that are the horn for

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you. Okay. Um, one more quick question just before we kind of get into the opportunity because I think we’re going

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to have some fun, you know, talking about that. I just curious, do you have any like, uh, you know, systems or tools

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that you found that have been extremely helpful in your in your business that, you know, you would you would recommend

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others look into? Yeah. on the, you know, on the CPA firm side, we had incredible success using

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Google Adwords, uh, as far as getting new clients. And I had friends with CPA

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firms who did nothing like that, you know, they got they got their clients in

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other ways. And there’s a lot of I think professionals out there whether it’s uh

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you know physicians or attorneys or accountants who don’t think that you

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know who are really focused on it being a relationship business and don’t think that people would hire an accountant or

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search for an accountant online. But what we found was uh people

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they do Yeah. Absolutely. and it uh you know if they’re if they’re at home you know at 2

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am googling you know CPAs that audit franchise companies online and if we’re

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not if we’re not there for them to find us they’ll find somebody else.

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So we were spending maybe $1,000 a month in Google ads uh

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and getting way more than that back in business. And you know, some of them were some pretty big companies that

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found us online, called us and hired us to be their auditor or their tax return

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preparer or their, you know, trusted professional advisor just by finding us

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on Google. And if we weren’t there, they would have found somebody else. So I

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think the power of the internet now uh especi and it’s not just you know I’m

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based in the Detroit area but we had clients all over the world and uh flew a

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ton uh you know to to get to them to do their work on the ones that we had to be

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on site for. But uh some of them you know found us online. We, you know, I

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remember once we had uh one of my partners had a pretty big

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client that owned a bunch of restaurants and they they hired a new CFO who had

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come from a big accounting firm and we were notified, you know, that April

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after we finished up their annual work that they were switching to a big CPA firm and that uh that client client was

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that one client was about 20% not 20% they were about 10% of our business at

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that time and within a week we had replaced their business with a

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new client that found us online uh that needed audited financials and you know

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that was really the power of being online is we lost a big client within a

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matter of days we had a new client whose annual billings were going be more than the client that we had lost. And uh you

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know most other accounting firms never would have had that opportunity because they wouldn’t have been able to be found

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online uh through a through you know through somebody searching

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for diversification of lead sources is you know it’s so important that you know it’s great that you had the referral

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thing going but you know being able to get found online just another another avenue for people to find you that’s you

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know so important. Yeah, absolutely. So, for you know, for us that worked. Uh, you know, you’ve

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gota, it took us a while to fine-tune the way that we were advertising on

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Google and Google Adwords and what search words to work, you know, because with that we were we were paying per

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click. And initially when we started doing it, it took us six to nine months

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to figure out uh you know that we were paying for clicks that really didn’t

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apply to what to the types of clients we were looking for and the kind of business that we wanted to get. So we

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had to continually be fine-tuning the way we were advertising so that it would

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work. Uh you know, and that was a while ago. So now there are a lot of people out there

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that specialize in, you know, search engine engine optimization and and

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different things to fine-tune the advertising so that the types of clients you’re trying to get are the ones that

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actually find you. And uh you know, so it’s not something that just happens

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overnight. So you can’t just decide uh okay, I’m going to try advertising and

31:45

then you know, try it for a month and not get anything out of it. give up. Yeah. Well, that [ __ ] doesn’t work. Uh

31:53

it’s you’ve got to figure out why it’s not working. And really with anything in business that you try that doesn’t work,

32:00

ideally you try to find out why didn’t it work. Yeah. Try a few different things.

32:06

Yeah. And you know, try to improve it. and but but always know that not

32:11

everything’s going to work and you’ve got to be willing to change it or willing to know when to pull the plug on

32:17

it uh and try something else because not everything’s going to work. But certainly if you’re not if you’re not

32:23

trying things then you’re not going to know. If you don’t try you don’t know if it would work or not. You can try to go

32:31

by the experience that others have had, you know, or learn from the mistakes of others, but it still doesn’t mean

32:37

because you think you can do it better than they did it that what you’re trying is really going to be better or going to

32:42

work. Some some things just don’t work. Yeah. And some things work for some

32:48

businesses and not others. Yeah. So it’s, you know, especially in this kind of

32:54

fastpaced business world that we’re in now, uh, things can change almost

33:00

overnight in some businesses. And, uh, with the political climate we’re in, you

33:07

know, tariffs, for example, and inflation, you know, stuff could be there one day and not be there the next.

33:13

And if you don’t know that something changed or you don’t have a plan in

33:18

place as to what to what to do when something changes, you know, days and

33:24

minutes and hours can be very important sometimes in what you’re doing and both in uh stopping losses but also taking

33:33

advantage of opportunities that could arise overnight. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate

33:40

that, Ron. That’s a lot of good information about kind of, you know, your your core business and how you got

33:45

going and everything. Uh why don’t we get a little bit into the opportunity here and and get into some some fun

33:51

stuff on that. Tell us a little bit more about it and you know how somebody could possibly get involved in this and you

33:57

know what the opportunity is for you know a listener that might be interested in it. Sure. And you know before we get going

34:03

since you have a hat on I’ll pop one on now.

34:09

There we go. Oh, there we go. All right. I didn’t want to be blatantly advertising Bud’s Place uh with a shirt

34:16

and all that since I knew we were going to be talking about some other things, but we

34:21

put a new hat on. Yeah, we do have an opportunity here uh with our franchising company. Uh it’s

34:28

called Buzzplace. We’re a franchiseor of social cannabis consumption lounges. Uh

34:35

we touched on it a little bit earlier, but uh we’ve put a model together for lounges with uh multiple revenue

34:43

streams, food and beverage, entertainment, uh retail of accessories,

34:50

uh work areas, VIP rooms, special events, entertainment, all you know, a

34:57

lot of different things that we think uh potential customers of a consumption

35:03

launch would And uh you know we had some comparable industries to examine and look at when

35:11

we were building our model you know like the bar industry and the the cigar lounge industry and the restaurant

35:17

industry to try to figure out uh what makes those types of businesses

35:22

successful, what kinds of things customers want. We’ve uh you know since

35:29

early on you know we the main objections we were hearing you know as to you know

35:36

from friends and people we were talking to and telling about our concept was you know why why would I go to a consumption

35:43

lounge when I can smoke marijuana at home you know or go outside and smoke

35:49

and you know we we our comebacks to that are

35:55

uh you know you eat at home. But yeah, you can drink at home, too. Yeah, you can eat at home. You can drink

36:01

at home. Yet, there’s 60,000 bars in the US. They’re, you know, way more

36:07

restaurants than bars. So, well, you know, you can eat at home, but you go

36:12

out to eat. You can drink at home, but there’s all these bars out there, and,

36:17

you know, they’re all different shapes and sizes and do different things and have different stuff for their customers

36:24

to do. And uh you know they’re busy and

36:29

uh yet with cannabis it’s uh yeah you you know you can smoke it at home but if

36:36

you smoke it in your home you’re usually going to have some residual odors there

36:41

that you may or may not want. You may have kids and not want to be partaking in cannabis in front of them. Uh you

36:49

know blah blah blah. there’s a lot of different things out there and it made it even

36:54

more challenging by it being a brand new industry and by being federally illegal.

37:00

So we we put a model together that uh we believe can be extremely

37:06

successful in the in certain states right now that are good with consumption lounges. uh we put a model together

37:13

where we believe franchises uh can get proper training and support from us and from our team and some of

37:20

that could be outsourced uh related to the cannabis training and the hospitality part of it. Uh we have a

37:29

food and beverage partner that’s got 35 or 40 restaurants open in the US right

37:34

now and they’re opening new ones uh almost on a monthly basis right now. So

37:40

for us that was important because they’ve they’ve trained franchises. They’ve got buying power in their

37:47

system. One of the advantage or a few of the advantages in being part of a franchise system is that is the training

37:55

and support and buying power uh you know and being part of something that has a

38:02

brand and has customer loyalty. So, the brand part and the customer loyalty part

38:08

for us with Buds Place is going to take some time. We’ve got to get some lounges open and do things the right way and

38:16

take good care of the customers, but it’s really just kind of business 101 with the model we put together. So,

38:23

it’s, you know, nice, clean, safe environment, good food, uh, good

38:28

customer service. It’s really all the basic stuff, yet it’s not basic because

38:34

it’s related to cannabis and cannabis usage. But it’s uh it’s really giving

38:41

people a place where they can go and work all day if they want to work, if they want to hang out with their

38:47

friends, if they want to watch a game on TV, if they want to see a comedy show. And we’ve got different things going on

38:54

uh in the space at different times that uh can give the customers a reason to

39:01

stay there for a couple hours, spend some money, eat some food, have a good time, get work done if they want. And uh

39:09

it seems like there’s an opportunity there to kind of have that cross between coffee shop and and bar that you don’t

39:16

have with really anything else. I mean, somebody going to a bar typically isn’t going to work and drink coffee, and

39:22

somebody going to a coffee shop, obviously, they’re not going to drink and and have the entertainment. So, it’s it’s like a, you know, it just seems

39:28

like different unique opportunity. Which leads me to the question, are there very many lounge cannabis lounges out there

39:35

at the moment? I’ve I’ve never seen any. I don’t I don’t really know. I’ve seen dispensaries. I’ve never seen one with a lounge.

39:41

Yeah. So there aren’t a lot of lounges open right now and uh for a few reasons

39:48

I think one of them is uh the rules are different everywhere.

39:54

So the states that allow lounges and have rules related to lounges and

40:00

examples of those right now would be California,

40:05

uh Michigan, Colorado, uh and a few other states. New Jersey

40:11

that have rules for lounges, but by the rules being different everywhere, it

40:17

creates different challenges. Uh, and the marijuana rules are different everywhere also. And most states, uh,

40:24

you know, any any marijuana sold in that state has to be grown in that state. So, you can’t transported over state lines,

40:31

uh, since it’s federally illegal. So, there’s a lot of little challenges there. But for us, it’s really, you

40:38

know, find out what the rules are in a certain state or area and figure out if

40:44

our model will will work there and stay true to our model. So, uh,

40:51

it’s, you know, and the other thing that’s made it made it tough on the lounges

40:56

that have been open so far is most of them, uh, specifically like California

41:02

and a few in Michigan, they were part of the dispensary where the dispensary was really just using their little smoking

41:09

area to sell more marijuana to their customers. And okay, so they they built

41:14

out a little room that had some chairs and tables and booths and a TV or two

41:19

and maybe like a little Pac-Man game or something like that, but there was really nothing to do in there.

41:25

Was not at the scale that, you know, we’re right. They didn’t have food and beverage. They didn’t really have

41:30

entertainment. It was it was what we like to call smoking room and not not a

41:36

hospitality facility. Yeah. And those, you know, they weren’t profit centers.

41:42

They didn’t know how to do it. They, you know, they they were in the marijuana business, not in the hospitality

41:48

business or the lounge business. So, what we we think the next evolution

41:54

uh in the in lounges is more hospitality facilities. And a couple have opened

42:00

recently. Uh not of ours. We don’t have a Buzz place open yet. We’re trying to get our first one open. But there’s a

42:07

lounge in Denver that uh has has some food and beverage, has some memberships,

42:13

has entertainment that they’re doing and acts that they’re booking, and uh they

42:19

seem to be off to a good start. Uh there’s a lunch in the San Diego area

42:25

that seems to be getting more and more popular and uh you know as these better

42:32

kinds of lounges start opening we think that it’s going to open it up really for

42:38

people to see what a lounge should be. And uh we love our model. We think it’s

42:45

better than anything we’ve seen out there. uh we have a team that can help

42:51

people get off to the start and get trained properly and get open. Yeah, it seems like the just the amount

42:58

of hoops jumping through and the differences between states like really, you know, lends this the scenario well

43:05

to have you guys step in and help and have somebody knowledgeable about franchises and accounting for one, but

43:11

let alone all the partnerships and everything else that you’re building to make this come together and work. seems like it would just be invaluable for

43:17

anybody that’s interested getting into something like this instead of trying to navigate all this on their own.

43:22

Yeah. And that that’s exactly how we think. Uh you know, we thought early on

43:28

that there would be potential franchises out there that would see all the

43:34

potential uh in this business model and want to get involved even though we

43:39

hadn’t been able to open one yet. but uh kind of found out that

43:45

uh everybody wanted to see you some successful lounges be open before they

43:52

were willing to take the plunge into it. So, we’re working hard to get our first one open. We have some investor

43:58

opportunities available for anybody who wanted to partner with us in that first lounge, you know, or or sign a franchise

44:06

agreement to open up one unit or multiple units in their in their area or

44:11

state. We can make some good deals with early adopters

44:17

uh of our model. We’ve got a lot of our own time and money sunk in to our model

44:24

and would have uh can have a fair amount of money available to help open up our

44:30

first lounge. We’ve got a lot of people pipeline that want to own the second

44:36

one. But uh afraid to take people need to see some successful

44:42

consumption lounges open in different areas of the country I think before they’re going to be comfortable with

44:49

that. But, uh, you know, we still think there’s people out there that are willing to, uh, take whatever risk they

44:57

may be in a brand new industry because there’s far more upside in something that’s new. Uh, you know, there’s

45:04

franchise systems out there that have had a lot of success and basically are out of territories to sell because

45:11

they’re everywhere already. We don’t have that problem. We’ve got uh wide open territories

45:18

down floor opportunity you know somebody could lock up a whole

45:23

state if they wanted to. You know, there’s certain states out there, uh, Michigan, you know, California,

45:31

Florida, that could handle a lot of lounges in that state. And if somebody

45:36

was really an entrepreneur and wanted, you know, to open up 20 in Michigan or 50 in California, we can make that kind

45:43

of a deal with them. Uh, once we’re ready to go. Uh, but we can, you know,

45:48

and they still get all the help, all the training, all the buying power by being part of our system. Uh

45:56

there’s a lot of different things we can offer them for help. What What are some of the support

46:01

systems that you guys intend to offer? I mean, you’ve kind of touched on a few, but you intend to like offer marketing

46:06

support or anything along those lines out of curiosity. Yeah. So, by being uh part of our

46:13

system, they’re going to get upfront training. uh we have approval rights on

46:18

sites, but they they really have to select it, but we can refer to brokers

46:25

uh in their area to help them find a good site. Uh we can refer them to other

46:30

professionals they may need to work with. If they need a license in their state, we’ve got attorneys we can refer

46:36

them to to help them with the licensing process for their lounge. uh you know

46:41

but they get I think four 46 hours of training from us uh on the

46:49

lounge they get uh you know they’ll have buying power so by you know our food and

46:57

beverage partner Crave hot dogs and barbecue they’ve got buying power

47:02

already with the kitchen equipment suppliers they’ll help train they’re part of our training program so they’ll

47:08

help train the franchisee on the food and beverage and hospitality part. They’ll get ongoing support from us.

47:15

They’ll be part of a loyalty program with our customers. So, you know, once

47:20

we get some units open around the country, they’ll have customers that are members of Buds Place that will search

47:26

them out and go to their lounge when they’re in that area because, you know,

47:32

they’re a member of Buds Place. They get certain perks by being a member. uh you

47:39

know they’ll get trained on a lot of things in their initial training and then they get ongoing support from us.

47:44

We’ll have a national advertising program that they’ll be part of or we’ll help promote them you know in their

47:50

area. So a lot of benefits. You look at some of the big franchise systems whether you

47:56

know Planet Fitness, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, you know, all their TV,

48:02

much of their TV advertising is paid for by their national advertising fund money

48:07

or their brand development funds. So, it helps all the franchises. Uh they’re

48:12

still responsible for, you know, advertising marketing in their own area, but they will get help from corporate

48:20

uh on that. they’ll pay a little bit into our marketing fund, but uh you know

48:25

they’ll see big benefits from that. But it’s really being part of a brand that

48:31

over time will become a national brand. So people will recognize them. They get

48:36

systems, they get support from us, uh they get training from us, they’ll get the menu from us. Uh and all that other

48:44

stuff. We’ll have, you know, we’ll have agreements with ride share companies that they can participate in because,

48:51

you know, part of the safety with customers is making sure they get home

48:57

safely if they’re so impaired uh to drive, which can happen with cannabis,

49:03

can happen with alcohol. Uh it’s obviously, you know, a big deal, you know.

49:08

Yeah, that’s a that’s a good idea, you know, just that partnership because I don’t even see a lot of the bars doing that and I don’t know why. It seems like

49:15

a huge missed opportunity. I mean, there’s there’s money to be made in it aside from, you know, just the safety

49:21

aspect of it, right? You know, and you know, maybe uh maybe we’ll have ride share agreements

49:27

that provide a little bit of a discount to the customers, too. So, we’re helping them save some money. Yeah.

49:33

But it’s really all about customer safety. It’s about having staff that are trained to recognize when,

49:40

you know, when customers may not be able to drive, you know, finding out if they

49:45

drove, you know, or if walk there, if they have a designated driver, you know,

49:51

or whatever. Find out, you know, what they’ve been embibing or consuming, uh,

49:58

what kind of medication they’re on. It’s really just all about interacting with the customers so that you can do the

50:04

best job possible to help keep them safe. Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s more, you know, I think

50:10

than most most borrowers do. So, I mean, it sounds like you’re really good track there. I mean, you guys have got all the

50:15

the support elements in place, it sounds like. Um, you know, with that in mind, who’s a

50:22

good fit for this opportunity? Really, anybody that wants to invest? I mean, are you looking for any particular

50:27

traits that somebody needs to have to be able to do this? Yeah. So, uh, you know, and that’s a

50:34

great question. Uh, first, it can be, uh, it can take a fair amount of capital

50:41

to own, uh, our kind of lounge. Uh, you know, it

50:48

it can cost for the ventilation system. it can cost for the the security system,

50:55

the internet wiring, the sound system, the buildout of the location,

51:00

uh the air cleaning system can be expensive. So, we need somebody with enough capital to be able to get a

51:07

lounge open on their own. Uh part of the challenge with cannabis being federally

51:13

illegal is that the big banks me most of the big banks in the US uh are not

51:21

interested in working with cannabis businesses because of their federal

51:27

charters. Uh it can make it difficult in some businesses to have bank accounts to do

51:34

advertising and marketing uh and things like that. But uh because we’re a bring

51:39

your own model, we think our lounge model uh will not be affected by most of

51:44

those rules where we can take credit cards. We deduct all our expenses where Oh, that’s good.

51:50

Because cannabis is federally illegal. Most cannabis most cannabis businesses can’t deduct most of their business

51:58

expenses other cost of goods sold. But uh we’ve got uh we figured out you know

52:06

ways to work within the system to have a successful profitable model that follows

52:13

all the rules and uh you know love a model. So the kind of person we’re

52:19

looking for uh has to be able to has to have enough capital to be able to fund

52:24

it their themselves if they need to or have a group together that can fund it and get it open. uh they don’t really

52:30

need to know the cannabis business or the hospitality business because they’re going to be trained in that. Uh you

52:39

know, so that’s really a big thing with most franchises is that you could have been an employee all your life, let’s

52:46

say, you know, at a bank or any unrelated business and want to get into your own business and own your own

52:52

business. And it’s the support and training and systems that you get from the franchiseor that helps you be a

52:59

successful business owner at least with one unit. Uh there’s other types of

53:05

people that, you know, could could run five or 10 units or more themselves and

53:12

and own them and have, you know, have a general manager that’s overseeing uh

53:17

most of the day-to-day stuff. Because there there’s different kinds of people that would be good at owning one

53:24

business and being on site all the time or most of the time with their main focus on that unit versus you know

53:31

owning five or 10 units. Uh you know and you see that in all kinds of industries where somebody can

53:37

have a successful business on their own and then they open a second one or third

53:42

one or fifth one and all of a sudden all of them are failing. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s uh it’s really

53:47

nothing unique to ours. So it’s really having you know having the drive to be

53:53

successful uh knowing all the opportunities want to be out there in your your community and

54:00

be you know a good corporate guest in that community. Uh focused on following

54:06

the rules. uh you know their cowboys you know may not be good franchises if they

54:13

if they’re always trying to do things their own way and not following the systems. Uh veterans are usually very

54:21

good franchises because used to following systems and you know if you’re

54:27

in if you’re in the army or navy or marines you know every day you’re following systems and uh knowing that

54:35

they’re there to help you succeed uh help you do what you’re supposed to do

54:41

help you get the job done. And uh you know, we saw that in Texas uh recently

54:46

with the floods the last few days where you know the the Coast Guard rescue people. In fact, one of them they were

54:53

interviewing was a former accountant and got into the Marine or got into the Coast Guard and this was his first

55:00

rescue mission. And because of all the training he had received and all the systems he followed and his team

55:07

followed, they were able to rescue some people and have success. And uh you

55:13

know, so a good franchisee is somebody who’s willing to to follow the script

55:19

and and understand that understands that that’s the way they’re going to have success. And with us as a new

55:26

franchiseor without any units open, we’re going to have a learning curve on our own too on uh on the training

55:34

programs on things that work that don’t work. So what we’re doing is giving giving the the early franchisees more

55:41

upside because even though I don’t think there’s a lot of risk or any risk in our

55:47

business, the fact is in any new business there’s risk and in any new industry, you know, that adds to the

55:53

risk. So, because they have more risk, we’re trying to give them more upside if they get in early. Uh, on our system,

56:01

uh, we have a a $75,000 franchise fee, which covers

56:08

all the training, covers, uh, you know, the brand, covers all the help we’re

56:13

going to give them to get open. We offer discounts to veterans. We offer a discount on the franchise fee

56:20

and the royalties as well to people of color or people, you know, in

56:26

the cannabis industry, they call it social equity. So, people who have been affected

56:32

by the drug trade or live in disadvantaged areas, we can give them a discount on franchise fees and on

56:39

royalties, but they still still cost X number of dollars to get a unit open.

56:45

So, they’ve still got to have the capital or be able to get the capital, you know, to open a unit and uh, you

56:52

know, open a lounge. And sometimes that’s just going to be having a team together that has all the capital to

56:58

invest in it so that they can get it going. But, uh, you know,

57:04

do you have a kind of a projected cost for, you know, what it might look like aside from the franchise fee to get it

57:10

open? I suppose it probably depends on the kind of the route they want to take, which is another question I had when you

57:16

know somebody partners with a a buds. Um, do you guys require that there be a

57:22

lounge, a bar, anything like that, or is it pretty well open to, you know, the the person coming in, how they want to

57:28

kind of set it up and what things they want to include? Yeah. So, uh

57:34

we have a model that is required to be followed as do most franchiseors.

57:41

We have a few things in there that depend on the area they’re in. Uh bar

57:48

for example, you know, so alcohol for the most part right now is not allowed in a consumption lounge. Okay?

57:55

It really is uh it depends on where you’re located and what the rules are there. We certainly want to be able to

58:02

sell alcohol uh in every bud’s place, but uh right now there’s only a couple

58:08

states or areas that would allow alcohol. You’d still have to be able to

58:14

get liquor license or beer and wine license in the community that you’re going to be located in. And that can be

58:21

that could be a challenge or that could be a nogo. So what we’ve done with our

58:26

own internal projections is is built them out without cannabis sales and without alcohol sales, but we know that

58:33

those are uh those may be allowed in certain areas and they may it may be

58:40

something that becomes allowed in the future. Uh you know, so it’s really uh and we’ve

58:48

got different revenue streams right now. We’ve got a a template layout on how we

58:53

want them to look, but we know that, you know, you’re not always going to

58:59

find a potential location that’s a perfect square or rectangle and the exact number of square feet that we have

59:06

in our model. So, we know that our as far the the layout of each buds place

59:12

may be a little different depending on the space that they rent. uh you know

59:18

but still you know you walk into an Outback Steakhouse for example and

59:23

almost everyone is exactly the same you know walk into a McDonald’s uh and they

59:29

used to all be the same now they’re changing a little bit inside with adding kiosks and things like that but you want

59:36

something in franchising that is consistent is replicable

59:42

uh so that customers when they come in they they already know what is going to look like and what to expect. The cost

59:49

you the franchise disclosure document FDD has a bunch of information in there

59:55

about the franchiseor including a table item seven that has

1:00:01

the initial cost or the initial investment to get in. Uh, our most

1:00:08

recent franchise disclosure document, the initial investment table, and I’ll use round numbers, has a range at the

1:00:15

low end of about 550,000 to the top end of about a million one.

1:00:21

So, you know, it depends on how big it is. It’s a big range because it depends on how big the space is. It depends on

1:00:27

what the real estate costs are, where you’re located. uh you know it depends

1:00:33

on what the what different things in there are going to cost, what the insurance is going to cost,

1:00:39

uh what the buildout’s going to cost, what the HVAC rules are. So it’s a pretty big range, but uh that’s what we

1:00:47

think, you know, it’ll take to open lounge. And uh you know every year that

1:00:53

table gets updated with new figures. If there’s inflation, you know the costs may go up uh if there’s supply chain

1:01:01

issues that the time frame to get open might change. But uh everything’s pretty

1:01:07

much laid out in the FDD that that document that all franchiseors are

1:01:13

required to have also lays out, you know, information on the management team. that lays out the franchisees

1:01:19

responsibilities, the franchiseor’s responsibilities, shows them basically

1:01:25

mo, you know, almost everything they need to know about the system. Uh,

1:01:30

systems that have franchises open, it will also have a list of franchises in

1:01:36

there. So part of the due diligence people do when they’re looking to buy a franchise is talk to existing

1:01:43

franchises, talk to former franchisees, find out as much as they can about the

1:01:50

system. You know, one of the main questions, you know, I have my

1:01:56

clients ask when they’re looking at buying a franchise is, you know, ask a franchisee,

1:02:01

uh, if you were doing it all over again, would you still buy this franchise?

1:02:07

and uh you know so anybody looking at at buying a franchise in in a existing

1:02:14

system that has units open uh the due diligence part as far as talking to

1:02:19

franchises and and former franchises is one of the most important things they can do.

1:02:25

Yeah, absolutely. Well, just one last question before we kind of wrap up here on um do you guys have a way that

1:02:32

somebody could reasonably predict the ROI they might see from one of these or is that yet to come?

1:02:38

Yeah. So, and this kind of gets back to the franchising rules is if you there’s an

1:02:45

item 19 uh in the franchise document which is a

1:02:50

per financial performance representation. Since we do not have any units open yet, we do not have one of

1:02:57

those in our FDD and we’re not able to provide uh expected numbers

1:03:03

to a prospective franchisee. We can help them develop that after they’ve signed a

1:03:10

franchise agreement, but it’s really up to them upfront to try to put some

1:03:16

projections together so they can kind of try to figure out how many customers a

1:03:21

day they’re going to have. they could find out from, you know, our food and beverage partner and talk to some of

1:03:27

their franchises to find out what they’re doing on the food and beverage side, on sales side, what the average

1:03:34

ticket price is per customer on the food and beverage. uh they could try to figure, you know, once they figure out

1:03:40

try to figure out how many customers a day they can expect, they can,

1:03:46

you know, multiply that out times the entry fee or the membership fee, uh to

1:03:52

figure out what that revenue might look like. But, uh,

1:03:58

for now, until we have some units open, they kind of have to figure it out themselves or take a crack at it

1:04:03

themselves. What we did for It’s always a magic question, you know. Yeah. And you know there’s

1:04:10

there can be extremely aggressive projections. There can be conservative ones.

1:04:16

I’ve yet to talk to a new business owner who said their projections were really

1:04:24

aggressive. Everybody says they’re conservative. You’re going to do better than this. But we tried to be

1:04:30

conservative. That’s kind of a standard line. But what we did when we put our

1:04:36

projections together for the first unit that we’re trying to get open is we talked to existing hospitality

1:04:43

facilities and we went to some cigar bars. We talked to the general managers.

1:04:49

We tried to find out, you know, how many customers a day they have, you know, dur on a weekday and on a weekend. uh what

1:04:57

kind of food sales they have, uh what kind of other sales they may have and

1:05:03

kind of then took that and put our projections together for what we think

1:05:08

one of our units can do. You know, you can go to bars, uh you can go to Dave

1:05:13

and Busters, you can go to different places like that and see how they’re doing. uh uh or just talk to, you know,

1:05:20

general managers, you know, uh waitresses, service people, they’re

1:05:26

usually happy to talk. Uh yeah, we went to a consumption lounge in an

1:05:31

area that was open in Michigan and uh talked to the security guard. We went

1:05:37

during the day during a slow time, my my main partner Mark Con and I, we talked

1:05:42

to the security guard for about an hour. He had nothing to do. There was nobody else in there at that time. He was happy

1:05:47

to talk to us and you know due diligence just talking to people can go a long ways. Yeah. It’s like the you know friends in

1:05:54

high places, friends in low places. Uh you never know who you can whose brain

1:05:59

you can pick on uh you know customer counts, how much

1:06:04

people spend, uh things like that. And all of that information, you know, you

1:06:09

follow it away and it it helps you put your own numbers together. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it sounds like

1:06:16

you guys have got a really uh good system that you’ve worked out. You’ve got a lot of resources. You’ve got a lot

1:06:22

of expertise in the area. Um I can’t see, you know, it just seems like this

1:06:27

is such a a good opportunity for somebody to get into that’s, you know, interested in doing something along these lines. So, where can people go to

1:06:33

learn more about the opportunity and and get in contact with you? Yes. So, our website is budsenplace.com.

1:06:42

budsplac.com. It’s got a lot of information on us. Uh,

1:06:50

anybody can contact uh me directly. My email address is ron sbuds-place.com.

1:06:59

Awesome. Cell phone number is 2483023344.

1:07:04

I I respond to texts, phone calls, uh anything. You know, anybody can ask

1:07:12

whatever questions they want, find out what they need to do to become a franchisee, what kind of investment

1:07:18

opportunities we have available, things like that. Uh we see it as an industry that’s going to be huge. That an

1:07:26

industry that at some point uh the bar industry and restaurant industry and

1:07:31

cannabis consumption industry will all meld into one and you know you can go to a place uh and eat and drink and consume

1:07:40

or a group can come in or some people are cannabis users and some people drink

1:07:45

and they can all have a really good time. Uh yeah, we see our lounges as a place where

1:07:51

customers can have high quality fun. That’s our tagline, HQF, high quality fun. And that’s exactly really what what

1:07:59

we’re all about. High quality fun, you know. Absolutely. Get high, but it’s a quality place.

1:08:05

We’ll have different ways somebody can have fun, you know, and they can work if they want. They can just hang out with

1:08:12

their friends. They can watch a game. They can see a show. There there will be a lot of things going on. Uh it’ll

1:08:18

become more apparent once we have some units open, but we have huge opportunities available to now uh for

1:08:26

now uh for people that get in on it early. And there’s a ton of opportunity for them to have fun and make a lot of

1:08:33

money. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you coming on and and telling everybody about the opportunity here and a little

1:08:39

bit about your background and some of your successes and wins and challenges. Uh it’s been a good time talking to you,

1:08:44

Ron, and yeah, I’m looking forward to uh seeing where this goes and uh seeing probably a whole slew of franchises out

1:08:52

there in the near future. Yeah, that’s what we’re hoping for too, Ryan. Thanks for having me uh today and

1:08:57

look forward to more discussions. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Ron. Have a good rest of your day. Thanks, everyone.

1:09:04

Bye. Now, you’ve been listening to the Biz Grow Mojo podcast with Ryan Amen. Make sure

1:09:10

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1:09:16

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