Summary
Host: Michelle Rowan, President of Franchise Business Review
Guest: Mark Jameson, Franchise Development Officer, Propelled Brands
Thinking about buying a franchise in today’s market? Before you invest, learn how to identify franchise models designed to withstand economic volatility. Michelle Rowan and franchise executive Mark Jameson break down the traits of recession-resistant franchise systems, the questions candidates should ask during due diligence, and how strong franchisors support owners through uncertainty.
*Propelled Brands did NOT sponsor this episode. But their brand, FASTSIGNS, does appear on our Recession-Resistant Franchises list and is worth checking out.
Resources
- List: Top Recession-Resistant Franchises (according to survey data)
- Read: Starting a Business in a Recession? Five Things You Need To Know
- Read: Best Recession-Resistant Business to Invest In
- Watch: A Thriving Family FASTSIGNS Business (great discussion about how they adjusted during Covid)
Transcript
Michelle Rowan (00:00)
Welcome back to our podcast, From A to Franchisee. And today we are going to tackle what a recession resistant franchise is and the value of considering joining a system that is in that category.
Today’s guest is Mark Jameson, a certified franchise executive with more than 20 years of experience across nearly every aspect of franchising. From franchisee relations and operations to development, finance, and marketing, he joined FastSigns International in 2009 and now leads franchise support and global franchise development for Propelled Brands, the parent company of FastSigns, My Salon Suite, and Camp Bow Wow.
Mark has been a frequent speaker at International Franchise Association events and international franchise forums, giving him a broad perspective on what makes franchise systems succeed, especially in challenging economic environments, because he’s lived through them. So Mark, thank you so much for joining us today to talk about this.
Mark Jameson (00:59)
Michelle, thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.
Michelle Rowan (01:01)
Yes, we’re excited. All right, let’s first, so our audience might not be familiar with this term, recession resistance. Goodness gracious, it’s getting me tongue tied. Let’s talk about what that means to you. What does recession resistant mean from your perspective?
Mark Jameson (01:17)
You know, I’ve worked in a host of brands and a host of industries. And I think what it really means is that, you know, during times of resistant, during times of troubles, COVID that we’ve all went through, you know, when I joined the company in 2008 was one of the worst recessions I think this country had at that point in time. I think it is the model flexible for those periods of times. And that could be price point. It could be type
Michelle Rowan (01:36)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Jameson (01:47)
of real estate, could be the employees you hire, the products and services. And as much as we all love luxury products, those are probably not the ones. What are the things that people need? And that could be in both a consumer ⁓ as well as a B2B.
Michelle Rowan (02:00)
Good one.
Yeah, love that.
So we at FBR, we try and not use recession proof because we do not have a crystal ball. So really what we’re talking about is mitigating the risk of the business you’re choosing by thinking, and I think COVID really gave everybody a lens into, is this an essential business? Is this going to be something that you can sustain through a lot of uncertainty? We’ll just kind of say that. So ⁓ I love that you said
Mark Jameson (02:12)
100 % agree with that.
Michelle Rowan (02:31)
it’s not B2C or B2B specific. So again, if we have a new audience, B2B ⁓ is a business that focuses on a business to business service or model or product, and B2C would be more consumer facing brands. So you’re saying you’re gonna see recession resistant in both, that it’s not necessarily in one category or the other. Okay. All right, love it. So I’m gonna just start with some data from us is that,
Mark Jameson (02:52)
Yes, yeah, I think so. Yep.
Michelle Rowan (02:59)
We ⁓ surveyed over 35,000 franchisees across 350 brands and our recession resistant list, we share it on our site. can look at it, FastSigns is one of the winners and has won several awards from us. So I think you have a good lens to kind of talk about this. And what we are looking at for that is this overall satisfaction of the franchisees, but we also look at specific criteria around…
essential goods and services, what you mentioned, diverse revenue streams, strong brand recognition within their business category, ⁓ discounted product services or lower cost alternatives, franchisee investment to revenue ratio, and the range of investment across the model. So that I want to give people that’s kind of our criteria for how FastSigns made that list and why we’re having this conversation today.
So what characteristics in a franchise model do you think helps a candidate or a person that’s looking to join the brand? Think about how they serve their business, how ⁓ exposed they are to a specific customer or a specific revenue stream or product. What are some examples? And you can use your experience at FastSigns.
Mark Jameson (04:15)
Yeah, I mean, I think for us and most brands I’ve worked with, you know, it’s really easy to get caught up. And I worked in retail and there’s an old saying in retail that, you know, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. When times are really good, you try to get margin. You do everything you can to make the most of it. I think in a business though, where you’re worried about what people’s spending is, it really comes down to being diverse. And you talked a little bit about this. Am I serving a variety of customers that are diverse?
that if their business, if I’m in a B2B business is struggling, I’m going to struggle. And or if they’re in a category that thrives during recessions. And we see that with many businesses. ⁓ I think a little bit about if we talk about fast signs we had franchisees have the best years they ever had during COVID. And we had others that really struggled. And it really boiled down to not only did they pay attention to certain details, but it was much about did they have a diverse customer mix? Did they have a customer mix that would
would ⁓ ebb and flow with the economy and with the market. We’re also lucky and I think almost most businesses are and I’ve been in consumer business as well, we own one. ⁓
Do you have a flexible price point for products? Do you have an offering that could be value? Because we’re saying recession, unfortunately recession typically means people looking for ways to spend less and keep the necessities, right? And you could argue signage may not be a necessity, but it is in our mind. But I can also give you a $10,000 sign or I can give you an $800 banner. ⁓ And at least I have that ability, our franchisees have that ability to ebb and flow with it and really figure
out what the need is and try to meet the need. And we, I think we teach that and we train it. ⁓ And I think there’s, in our Camp Bow Wow brand and many brands, you know, we have membership so we can reduce their cost of daily. We don’t want them to stop bringing their dog, but maybe if they want to save money, we can buy a membership. And many franchise models have membership basis that it allows it to reduce the cost per visit or per stay or whatever it is.
think those are the things that you should be looking for. Is it going to make the consumer feel like they’re getting a value at a time when that’s when they’re seeking and they may have limited funds?
Michelle Rowan (06:38)
I love that. The reoccurring revenue is from the membership idea is also a way to help your franchisee think about how they can plan for revenue that’s coming in each month. So that’s really great.
Mark Jameson (06:49)
And
you tie it into a discount, like I said, and then maybe a stretch too far now, we’ll get to it later. But we then rely very heavily on our suppliers to come back and say, show us products that cost less. What can I sell to accomplish the same thing that may be less, especially in a business like FastSigns where everything is manufactured? How can I accomplish the same thing with a product that maybe costs slightly less and still gives the customer that value experience?
Michelle Rowan (07:16)
Okay, I’m writing down so many notes right now, Mark. Okay, so first what I wanna say is really great notes that I just wanna follow up, because these are awesome comments. first I think that COVID really tested all franchise models. So I think corporate teams have this spiel down of how they can educate candidates on how they worked through that. And I want to ask you, well, I have so many questions in here, but first I wanna say.
Mark Jameson (07:20)
Good or bad, Michelle?
Michelle Rowan (07:42)
Today’s standpoint, I think the tariffs have really impacted business, the cost to do business and shrunk that profitability for franchise owners, supply chain issues. And what you just said really resonated as far as the franchisor has the opportunity to work with their supplier partners to do more of that kind of group power of what can you do to help us, which is just one of those added benefits of being part of a franchise system versus being.
on your own trying to deal with what do these tariffs mean to my profitability? How can I source lower cost items? So that I want to just kind of mention. I think that’s a great example of today. What we’re seeing as far as recession ⁓ impact on people’s business is around tariffs and how that’s changed what they’re offering and how they get their product.
Mark Jameson (08:27)
And I would even
take it a step above that, which to me is really the franchisor’s obligation. And we’ve spent the last two years working on it is, how do I reduce their investment going in? Maybe I’m going to sell the same products and services, but boy, I need to relook at the box, as I call it, if you’re a real estate driven model, and say, where have I been doing things that maybe we did in good times and maybe times are tougher now? I’ve got to bring their investment down. We just went through this with all three of our brands.
And what I like to focus on in that equation is what I call revenue generating space. If I was building 8,000 square feet and now I need to get it into six, I don’t want the customer experience to suffer. I still want it to be great, but I want to be able to take areas out that’ll either reduce their rent, reduce their build out costs, because I can’t do anything about tariffs probably specifically, but if I can spend less, I can overcome that challenge.
Michelle Rowan (09:23)
Perfect, okay. So I was gonna ask you for some questions that people could ask their franchise or their corporate teams when they’re doing this discovery process. I think you just nailed one as far as you could ask them how do they support their franchisees through COVID specifically if they’ve been around that long, or like you said, how often are you looking at the cost to your franchisees to do business and helping them try and find ways to reduce that cost? So I think that’s a great question. Any other questions?
Mark Jameson (09:50)
Yeah, because your return
on investment is going to be less if I don’t change things. So I’ve got to change the metrics to make sure they’re still getting a proper return on investment. Correct. Yeah.
Michelle Rowan (09:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, and it could help them break even quicker. So that’s also a bit of it. Can
you think of any other questions that might be helpful for them to ask to suss out whether this team is really focused on, like you said, that the profitability of the franchisee?
Mark Jameson (10:11)
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, every brand is again different, but a lot of it’s going to stem around supply chain and what relationships do you have in supply chain. And I think that crosses all categories. Do you have the ability? Will you have the ability? Do you negotiate on my behalf with vendors and suppliers? Do you find alternative suppliers for products and goods that I’m selling? ⁓ And how do you do that? And how do you position that? And then I think some of it is during COVID for FastSigns, which was fascinating,
I think some of the things we learned is we had to come up with different products and categories. We had to appeal to, you know, one of the best examples. I think one of our franchisees did and I think getting your franchisees involved is also crucial. Great question. How do I, how do your franchisees get involved? Do you work through an advisory council? That type of things because they obvious the best ideas but you know there wasn’t a lot of signage being printed in some ways because people weren’t going into buildings in some cases. But then all these kids were graduating and no one would
recognizing them. So one of our franchisees started working with the local school and did all these signage for yards that said, congratulations to Suzy, class of 19 whatever. Well, I guess it was 2000. I just hated myself. And people were like, it went crazy. We never thought about that before. We were always a signage company. We always could have done it. But nobody ever looked at an alternative way to say, hey, these kids aren’t getting recognition. They’re not going to graduation.
Michelle Rowan (11:23)
You just dated yourself,
Mark Jameson (11:42)
And so people, we worked with the school systems. And so I think the question becomes, do you have a product that’s flexible? What can you do as a franchisee? And what is the franchise or bringing you? And the best ideas, we fired up a website that was, I don’t remember the name of it now, but it was like COVID related ideas. And we let franchisees post to it. We took it, turned it into ideas and said, we can support this. Let us go to our supply chain and see if we can negotiate something to
Michelle Rowan (12:04)
that.
Mark Jameson (12:11)
support this avenue or this channel and then redirect our marketing team to look at things that also helped support those efforts. So it’s really got to be a cross the board effort, both franchise or franchisees and then within the franchise or working with supply chain and everything to make sure that we’re all focused on it. And we are no doubt a better company because of it. I think.
Michelle Rowan (12:35)
Yeah, and I love that collaboration that you bring up as far as the
franchisees sharing these ideas because I think in some systems you’ll see that it’s very stifled. They’ll say, you know, here’s the model, here’s your products and services and stick to this. And there’s the famous story that the Big Mac came to McDonald’s through a franchisee. So if you’re a franchisor that embraces it and says, hey, you know, this is within the guardrails of what we’re doing and makes sense. How can we roll this out to our whole network? Everyone’s going to benefit from that rather than.
Mark Jameson (12:51)
Yeah.
Michelle Rowan (13:03)
you’re not coloring within the lines, shut it down. And I think that’s a great example of questions you can ask franchisees and your corporate team as far as how do you work with franchisees to get these new product and service ideas and vet them and then help roll them out to the system. It’s great. ⁓ And also too, just, the supply chain is, I think could be a whole separate conversation, but it is a very complicated.
Mark Jameson (13:18)
Yep, absolutely.
Michelle Rowan (13:27)
⁓ process. And so just thinking about the franchise or the value they bring to negotiating those things and making sure that your vendors are providing goods, products and services or fair prices is just, yes, yes. Yeah. So I think that’s also a great call out there.
Mark Jameson (13:37)
and alternative products and services in some cases.
As we looked at value engineering, we had to make changes. We’ve always done it this way. Well, great, now that has a 20 % tariff, let’s find something that doesn’t or can be established locally or do something else.
Michelle Rowan (13:54)
Yeah. Okay, so those were great examples of how your team and the franchisees actually are working with each other to work through those difficult times, whatever they are. How about also too, and I think I’ve brought this up before, but my husband and I own our own independent business and then being part of the franchise industry, getting to see both ⁓ sides of that through COVID really shine a light on the power of franchising through that.
What are some ways that you feel like you guys really stepped up, not necessarily the solving the products and services, but just from a communications standpoint, how did you guys help navigate your franchisees through? And what I’m trying to think of is we can’t predict what downturns, what things are coming at us. So what is the role of the franchisor when everyone is being faced with a new type of challenge that could threaten your business?
Mark Jameson (14:42)
I remember that time well, and it’s a really good point. I hadn’t thought of it in its terms. You really then moved to be more consultative. And one of the biggest things that people navigated and we spent full-time effort on was the loan programs that the government had offered, both the payroll loan programs that eventually led to the EIDL program. And franchisees had a hard time navigating it. We did too, but we were able to work with lenders and others to say, what is the process? How do you qualify? How do we help them get their applications?
through because if we couldn’t, ⁓ if they needed that support, even if they didn’t need it, they still were able to qualify for it. We wanted them to have that extra level of support. So we helped them navigate that. I think the same thing on the landlord side is that there were times when we could go back to the landlord and our real estate team did and say, hey, everybody’s in this situation. Can you give us a break? Can we work on a deferred rent? Can we work on something so that we can continue to operate? And the same thing with
with
lenders that showed flexibility during that time. ⁓ And so I think it’s a matter of being more consultative at that point in time. And it may mean adjusting the staffing model, right? If your business changes and evolves, then you need to be able to have flexibility and understand what other options exist with team and staffing and things to reduce costs, keeping people employed, but maybe you have to change the structure a little bit and maybe you have to reduce hours or
or make different ways to deal with it. And I think that’s when you are now more in a consultative role. And here’s the things you need to be doing as a responsible business owner. Never the fund decisions, never the decision. But if I could help somebody get and qualify for a PPP loan, that was a term I couldn’t think of. I lived that for I swear a year. But there were very specific qualifications and we helped them with it. We work with our lenders to make sure that they had support in that area.
Michelle Rowan (16:25)
Yeah.
Mark Jameson (16:42)
And some of that stuff was the first in, got it quicker, and so it had to be very timely as opposed to, I did it six months late, now the rules changed again.
Michelle Rowan (16:48)
Yeah.
Okay, I think that’s a really good perspective on it. And you said something that also made me think about how were your franchisees, so my question is, guess, how important is the franchisees community involvement and the relationships that they’re building locally? Were they able to connect with other business owners to figure out ways they could support other businesses with their products and services? Were they thinking about a different type of customer to work through that?
downturn of what was happening to their business.
Mark Jameson (17:26)
absolutely and different products, you know, because if we talk fast signs and I know it applies to everybody, but the B2B nature of that is all about that local community. And if you remember that time, especially depending on where you lived, ⁓ signage needs changed every day. First, it was you have to have a mask. Then it was you can’t eat indoors. Then it was six feet distance. Then it was where to go only, where drive through only all of those things. And so we had to be able to come up with products with that local franchisee.
Michelle Rowan (17:35)
Yeah.
Mark Jameson (17:56)
sometimes working with the Chamber of Commerce and others to say what makes, what will help them also get through this period of time versus other things. And it was changing very quickly. That landscape, you know, as we remember, and I think recessions are the same way. The customer’s perception changes quickly, what they want to spend, what’s important, what’s not important, how much they spend. ⁓ All of those things change quickly. And I think the ability for the franchise or to react comes from not only the
Michelle Rowan (18:08)
Yeah.
Mark Jameson (18:26)
community they serve and the communities they work in but with other franchisees and the franchisor as a true partnership.
Michelle Rowan (18:34)
Yeah, and so I think
some of the questions that I’m sussing out from this to offer up are to figure out how quickly or how flexible the franchisor was during things like this because the nature of a franchise system in my head is pretty rigid. have these, right? But you need to know what you can make room for when it calls for it.
Mark Jameson (18:50)
Yeah, no, that’s true.
Michelle Rowan (18:57)
And then I also think that relationship building thing is so important because I think about the way that gyms took classes to online or the way that local consumers wanted to support their local business owners, which franchisees are, through these weird times. So they were buying gift cards or they were trying to figure out ways to support their businesses because they didn’t want them to disappear forever. So I think having the franchisor support you and how are you always building those relationships and that awareness that you are a local business owner in the community.
Thinking about that for the times when things shift or change, you’re kind of insulating yourself as much as you can, not knowing what the future holds. So those were some good call-outs too. What would you say to, I think right now is a great time to ponder this question in that money is more expensive to get access to right now. I think people are uncomfortable with what’s happening in our world politically. know we don’t need to get into all of that, but I think it’s, yeah.
Mark Jameson (19:54)
Good.
Michelle Rowan (19:56)
It’s a, I think it’s a time for people to pause and think more on the short term of I shouldn’t start a business now. What would you say to them as far as trying to take more of a longer look or a longer term thought about what owning a franchise could actually do for them, whether they start now or later, but how do you get them to shift from that short term what’s happening in my world now to what is my business or service that is how I will make my living and potentially create generational wealth.
Mark Jameson (20:24)
Yeah, I mean, it’s a good question. mean, I think you you run into two things during this time for we have multiple franchises, but those that are more replacement income, you actually get a surge of people who are worried about their future and their job. And now is the time. And in some ways, that’s not bad because I’m taking the leap. I’m going to need to take the leap. and maybe real estate costs are a little less right now because people aren’t opening as many businesses. ⁓ And while interest rates fluctuate,
⁓ the cost of money which everybody makes a big deal out of when you really do it over the long term if interest rates are up a point or a half a point whatever it isn’t a big deal in the big picture we get very caught up in it but when you actually do the math on it ⁓ it isn’t about that and so I think if you can focus on this is what I want to do and this is what I’m going to go after there’s sometimes programs out there maybe franchise or as are offering incentives and things like that some do
⁓
I think if you’re ready to do it, do it now, don’t wait, because there may never be the ideal time. I don’t know what the ideal time looks like anymore. If you go back and think prior to COVID even, it is, it’s always something. It’s interest rates, it’s the cost of this, it’s the cost of employees, it’s finding employees. There’s always something. And if you’re gonna be an entrepreneur, you’re gonna have to learn to overcome those challenges, and doing it with a franchise will help you. There’s always no time like the present. Just make sure you…
Michelle Rowan (21:34)
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Jameson (21:54)
understand what you’re getting into and that you’ve asked your franchise or the right questions. Are they cognizant of these things? How are they overcoming it? Is it value engineering? Is it new products and services? Is it flexible products and pricing? ⁓ And, you know, I look at some of our franchisees that opened in eight and nine, and they’re some of the strongest franchisees we have in the network today. And if you ask them, they tell you they would do it all over again, even though they questioned their sanity probably at the time. But they’re like, I
Michelle Rowan (22:22)
Yeah. ⁓
Mark Jameson (22:24)
a stronger and now the good times are better because I already know how to work through the difficult times.
Michelle Rowan (22:30)
Yeah. The other thing that I would say is great if you join a franchise system where you have those franchise owners from 2008 or 2009, they’ve lived through it. So you get to tap into their ⁓ kind of, it’s a shortened learning curve of how do you work through this really weird challenge? Because you have people that have done it in the same business. That’s great. All right. So I think you gave us a lot of questions to think about and also too, you gave some good examples as far as
Mark Jameson (22:38)
Exactly. Good point.
That’s right. Yep. Exactly. Yep.
Michelle Rowan (22:58)
what are really temporary challenges versus the weakness of a brand as far as if they don’t serve a diverse customer set, if they don’t have multiple products, if there’s not flexibility. Is there anything else that you would offer up to candidates to think about as they explore franchise opportunities to ask of the franchisees or the corporate team to help them assess if this is a solid business model as recession resistant as they could hope for?
Mark Jameson (23:25)
Well, I am without a doubt a believer of looking at the FTD and studying the FTD and understanding trends like closings and openings and resales and all of those type of things. ⁓ And I think that there’s gold in that if you understand it and you look at it and then compare it to competitors in the space if you’ve decided on a category. ⁓ And so I think really it probably boils down to research. And this is not a plug for FBR, but there’s no better place
to start than franchisee business review because you do the research. And so now it maybe becomes more important to talk to franchisees or to read testimonials from franchisees who’ve been there and said, I feel closer to my franchise or now because they were with me in the times that were difficult. And let’s face it, they’re difficult for us too. Our revenue may be taxed. We may be looking for different ways to adjust what we do and how we support franchisees.
So I think a lot of it is about asking the right questions ⁓ and talking to franchisees who’ve been through it ⁓ is the gold.
Michelle Rowan (24:37)
Yeah, that’s fantastic. When you talk about seeing closings and resales in an FDD, is there ever any reason that you feel like it makes sense? how could a franchise, should a franchisee, if they see a lot of closures and resales just walk away, or are there questions they should ask where it might make sense that you’re seeing that in an
Mark Jameson (24:56)
It’s a good question. I don’t think resales are necessarily bad. It depends on the size of the network and the length of the network, right? We have different brands and in some cases it’s people deciding that I’ve been doing this for 20 years and now’s the time for me to sell and hopefully it’s a good, healthy resale. So I don’t know that it’s bad. I think I’d ask questions around it. Closings typically is not ever a good thing, but we all have closings. We have circumstances, sometimes somebody loses a lease, sometimes it’s, this is a very personal business.
issues, divorce, things like that can impact those things. So I don’t know that there’s, unless it’s off the charts, there’s a big red flag, but it’s certainly a good question to ask. Why do you typically see closings and ⁓ what are the circumstances and maybe how do you support franchisees who are going through a difficult or challenging time? I think all franchisers deal with it. ⁓ I don’t think either one is bad, but you’d want to understand the reasons. And if you see it spike one
Michelle Rowan (25:36)
Okay, I like that.
Mark Jameson (25:56)
year versus another year, then I think you deep dive on it a little bit more.
Michelle Rowan (26:00)
Yeah, well, and I will also say that I feel like I’ve seen or I talked to a lot of franchisers that go through this, especially if it’s an older brand, that the type of franchise owner they brought on in the beginning is not the type of business owner that they need as their business is evolving. So sometimes you’ll see there’s a concerted effort to get those kind of misaligned franchisees out of the system. But again, I think if it’s…
If you’re seeing a lot in the FDD, I would say just ask those questions of the franchisees or the corporate team to understand why you’re seeing that turnover or those resales. ⁓ Yeah.
Mark Jameson (26:31)
Yeah, is there a trend that suddenly
looks different and what is that trend? I agree with you. We were a walk-in, buy a sign business when I joined the company in 2009, and we were hardcore retail locations. Now we’re solely focused on B2B. We’re outside sales driven. It’s no longer walk-in. don’t even, in some cases, our franchisees don’t want that walk-in, I want a yard sign for my flea market or tag sale. It allows us to be out focusing on larger
Michelle Rowan (26:55)
Yeah.
Mark Jameson (27:01)
customers, selling solutions ⁓ and building a long-term relationship with a customer as opposed to a one and done. And I think it is a good question. How have you evolved to the new economy? That’s what that was for us. This was a business here founded on walk-in traffic. Today, it’s not. So how is a franchisor evolving? And that includes the word everybody uses. And I thought I could get through without saying it, and that’s AI, right? How are you using that to help your franchisees and deal with your customers? And I think those things
become
the questions you should be deep diving and asking if you’re looking at a franchisor what are they doing? How are they doing to prepare for the new economy, the future and a different customer? The customer is very different depending on the age and their actions, right? You already accused me of dating myself when I brought up 1990, so you know.
Michelle Rowan (27:48)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a really good point. How do we not talk about AI?
Yeah, well, maybe we need to have a whole episode on how candidates can understand how AI is going to impact the business model of what they’re looking at. yeah, yeah. I love it. This has been such a great conversation. I would say just go visit our website if you want to check out the recession resistant. I’m going to get that term out by the end of this conversation. What I love about our list is that you’ll see brands that are in a business to business service space. You see child services, you see retail.
Mark Jameson (28:02)
100 %? Yeah, I think it’s, we’re all looking at it, right? Or we should be.
Ha ha ha ha
Michelle Rowan (28:25)
You see automotive, this is not about one particular vertical in franchising. There’s opportunities, I think, across most that you can find brands that are recession resistant. So as Mark says, do your homework, talk to the corporate team, talk to franchisees, and really do your research. And hopefully this will help you land on a brand that gives you the least amount of risk no matter what happens in our world, our crazy world we move forward in. Thanks for joining us today, Mark.
Mark Jameson (28:48)
Yeah.
Always a pleasure, Michelle. Thank you.
