He Was Franchisee Number One. Now He Runs The Company

Kyle Chiasson was 22, working a banking job in eastern Washington and on track for his CFP. He describes the feeling as sitting in a nice four-walled office with everything you think you need, withering away inside.Then his mom dragged him to a happy hour to meet a friend of hers. Three months and four conversations later, that man asked him to become the first franchisee of a restoration brand that had zero locations, no proven playbook, and nobody ahead of him who had done it. Kyle kept a book of pros and cons while he decided. He still has it. He has never opened it.In this episode of The Exit Plan, Alex sits down with Kyle to walk through the whole arc. The 24 hours he spent shaking in a hotel room before he called back and said yes. The New Year's Eve in his first year when he was alone in a bowed attic at 11:30 at night pulling out wet blown-in insulation, texting a friend that he would not be making the party, wondering what he had done. The $500 radio ad from a guy with a great voice that taught him what getting got feels like. The customer who threatened to call the DA on a scared 23 year old to get his bill knocked down.They also get into what changed when he stopped running his own territory and started running everyone else's. Kyle explains why the brand turns candidates away, the coffee-or-beer test his team uses before awarding a franchise, why they want integrators rather than innovators, and the case he makes for restoration being the most recession resistant category in franchising. He exited his own locations two years ago to focus entirely on the brand, which is now past 70 locations across 26 states.Plus the most expensive mistake he has ever made, what nobody tells you about owning a franchise until you are in it, and what he wants those 70 owners to say he did for them.Get your free Franchise Fit Score and see what your capital actually buys in franchising: https://franzy.com/questions/user-onboarding?next=%2Fuser%2FjourneyCHAPTERS00:00 Intro 00:40 The office where he was withering away 01:40 The happy hour his mom dragged him to 03:30 The book of pros and cons he has never opened 05:44 24 hours to decide 07:06 Moving back to Colorado 08:35 Year one, a truck and a go bag 10:53 The $500 radio ad that got him 12:24 What he got wrong as the guinea pig 14:30 Why you cannot shortcut this