Joyful Cabinet Painting Franchise Radio Show Interview

Hi folks, John Henning here from the Franchise Radio Show. Thank you so much for joining us and listening in. Today we're joined by Sharla Lee, the CEO and co-founder of Joyful Cabinet Painting out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Sharla, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the time.

Now, before we jump into the business, what I'd like to do is just learn a little bit about you, kind of tell us where you're from, a little bit about you personally before we get into any of the business stuff. Is that okay? Yeah, that's fine. I figure most entrepreneurs have a good story.

Yeah, we'd like to hear yours. Go ahead and tell us where you're from. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Okay, great.

So I was born in Southeastern Kentucky, moved pretty quickly, grew up in Ohio, in Southeastern Ohio, went to Ohio State. And my family and I, we moved around a little bit and ended up back in Cincinnati. So we've been in Cincinnati since 2008. Absolutely love it here.

It is definitely home. So I, and my background is business. And when I got out of college, I had a few jobs, mostly in the development part of nonprofit. So fundraising.

So I did that for several years. And then I have two daughters. One now is 23 and is a kindergarten teacher. And one is 20 and she is in her third year of college.

So have recently become an empty nester, which is, I do feel is the best phase of life. So when my kids were young, I worked part time doing a lot of things, different business things, real estate for a while. So I've always from an early age that I can remember, always really had this desire and dream of owning my own business. But I was never raised by entrepreneurs.

Nobody in my whole family ever started their own business. So it's just something that I don't know, I just felt kind of pulled to but had no idea how to do. So I was one of those kids that always had a side hustle. So I was always selling t shirts.

I was always washing cars. I was always somehow from a very early age, always had the side hustle. So progress another 30 years. And I that dream of mine to have my own business was still there.

So but I just didn't know how to do it or didn't know where to even start. So when I was 45 and my kids were getting a little bit older, a friend had started, she was an artist and she did art classes at a small business called The Colorful Cupboard. And so that it was a consignment store of local artists work, a lot of painted furniture. And so she and I, just as a hobby, painted furniture.

So this woman wanted out of the business and Laura contacted me and asked me if I had an interest. It was kind of like, all right, now or never, let's do it. And so we bought the business for not very much money. It was pretty small.

And, but we realized pretty quickly why she wanted to sell it, which was because she was probably going to go out of business very soon. So we bought that in May of 2017, did a lot of painted furniture is what is how we kind of started. And people got to know us. People kept asking us about cabinets.

And so at first we said, no, just really didn't know how to do it. And then people just kept asking so much that we were like, all right, let's do it. So we went to some conferences, took some training, did some training, bought a sprayer. Her husband built this spray booth in the back of our shop, which is laughable now when we look back on that.

It had like a box fan with a hole going out the side of the box. I know exactly what you mean. That's great. So we bought the business in May 2017, started painting cabinets in November 2017.

And it just went. We had a really good following. We're both very involved in our community. We knew a lot of people and we had a lot of support from the community and we just it just kind of took off.

So we scaled. It started with she was painting the frames in the home. I was spraying in the back and we just, you know, as business grew, we just grew with it. And we just from the very beginning, we're just extremely process oriented.

And so as we scaled, we created our processes. And one thing, too, from the very beginning, and I think this is what really helped us because we didn't do any marketing. We really I mean, we had a Facebook page. We didn't do a lot of marketing was just the quality and how we treated our customers.

I mean, you know, my my mantra is like over communication. We have extremely high standards for our employees about how they are in people's homes, how they treat our customers. and that's unfortunately that's unusual in this day and age you know people were just they couldn't believe it that we actually sent the quote that we actually showed up when we said we were going to show up so we really built a lot of the business on referrals from the beginning and so that just you know we we would hire a painter then we would hire a sprayer looking back from where you are today when did you when did you actually start franchises so we did not start we so progress through that and we like during covid we it went crazy like we really took off so probably for the after the first we were doubling our revenue every single year um and so within like two to three years we got up to over a million dollars in revenue a year we we weren't really we knew we wanted to expand and so the thought of franchising really started probably in 2023 because we were you know it was like how do how are we going to do this do we start different locations in Dayton Columbus you know it was just kind of one of those things of kind of a slow methodical thought process we really started you know finding out more about franchising how that worked at that point and then um in 2024 this was in the spring of 2024 one of our past clients who we had done her cabinets a few years ago she was a designer and so we had had a relationship with her where we needed clients who needed extra color selection color consultation things like that we would refer to her so we just had this really good relationship with her so in the spring of 2024 she came to us and said that her husband was getting transferred to austin and she loved what we do her kids were getting a little bit older she wanted she wanted to do it i mean she just was like i love what you do i want to take it i think it could be great down there i want to take it down there so that's when we really wanted to make that work with her and so we we tried to figure out the best way to do that and since we had already done a lot of research on franchising we made the decision to move forward down that down that path um so we just spent most of last year getting everything together you know getting all of the documents all of the legal stuff and that's what we changed our name from colorful cover to joyful cabinet because we needed to trademark and really you'd be amazed at people who cannot do not understand the word covered anybody under 40 has no idea what that word is right yeah they all know cabinets right they do so so that's really how we got into it and so it's just been i mean i think the people we've met everything we've learned the journey with her.

It's really just been amazing. So yeah, so that's it. So we got into it in 2024. She signed on in December of 2024.

She had just moved to Austin. So we were just really getting her up and running and now she's up and running and doing great. Oh, fantastic. Yeah.

That's great. So let's talk a little bit about the business model itself. We know what you do based on what you've just said, but who are your customers? Kind of describe your average end user customer.

Who are your franchisees selling the service to? Sure. So our three main services are cabinet painting. So we'll paint what you have.

You paint your current cabinets. We will replace the doors. And we also do kitchen accessories. So like kitchen pool, we just added that about a year ago.

And that's been fantastic. And really just all of this all along, how we have grown is by listening to our customers and what they want. So our customers are primarily residential. So residential homeowners, and that can be million dollar, $2 million homes down to a condo.

So it's really all sizes. We do large kitchens down to vanities. Anything we always say, if it has a door and it stands still, we can do it. So it's so really, it's mainly residential, we have worked with, you know, apartment buildings, churches, you know, we can definitely do commercial.

And that but at this point, it's primarily residential. Okay. Okay. And is there a certain type of demographic customer you're servicing?

You know, really what, where we have kind of set ourselves through this whole process and, and not to say that we're, I mean, we're constantly evolving, but really what we have tried to do through these different services that we offer, you could, it can fit with any design and any budget So you know we we have I mean I would say you know who we really want we want that large homeowner who wants to change their doors and change their design You know maybe they bought a home in 2000 and they want to update it to shaker cabinets They don't want to change the footprint necessarily.

But so, I mean, it's what we can do because we paint and because we versus like a refacer. usually the cost is like a third of the cost of doing all of that um and probably a quarter of the cost of putting new cabinets on so you know it's really it's like we try to be able to be there for anybody you know we really try to talk to people who from all demographics really the main thing is that they're a homeowner but you know we really feel like everybody depending on no no matter where they live, you know, needs joy in their home.

So, you know, we want to be able to provide that. Now, what separates you from the competition? There's other companies out there that do what you do. How do you differentiate from, you know, a crowded market or from the competition?

Yeah. And I think when you really delve down, there's not a lot of apples to apples competition. So you may have, you know, large painting companies, you know, sort of pro painters, you know, five-star painting, places like that, they really concentrate on interior, exterior. When you get down into those franchise owners, they usually don't want to do cabinets because it's a whole different beast.

You have to, you really need that climate controlled space to be able to spray the doors, the prep involved, the cleaning involved. A lot of times they don't even have the, you know, the products or the tools to be able to do that. So they really, like we have a lot of contract painters that refer us for cabinets and vice versa. So, you know, you find that just because they don't want it, they don't have the same core staff who have that detail oriented painting skills.

So that's one, you know, our other competitors, you would look at as refacers. So, you know, like kitchen savers, kitchen solvers, places like that. They do amazing work. I'm not saying anything about that.

It's just, it's different. Like we also offer, so they offer that polymer door that's thermo fused on a high density fiberboard core. We also offer that the difference. So we give our customers two choices.

They can have full maple. They can really have anything, but that's typically what people choose full maple or the thermo foil. and so we the difference between us is that we paint the frames so even if they want those indestructible doors um which are great for kids and pets and all of that we can still do that but we paint the frames and the price is usually a third to a quarter of a typical refacer i see and they get the same so it's like so and they get the same look everything is the same um and And then, you know, we can also do what also sets us apart from typical painters is that we offer the kitchen accessories.

So we can do all of that. Like if they need soft clothes drawers, interior pullouts, pantries, lazy Susans, all of that kind of stuff, too, which your typical painter is not going to be able to do. No, right. You're not going to get in anything like that.

Yeah. So, I mean, those are some of the product things that set us apart. But I think, you know, really what that I have seen just as we've grown the business, what sets us apart is how we treat our customers and really the quality for value, which is kind of what I was talking about before. But just the over communication.

I mean, we probably we probably contact our clients at least 10 times before the job actually starts. I mean, they know everything, like what to do to get ready, when we're coming, down to the hour. I mean, it's, you know, everything like that. So people are amazed.

They're like, I cannot believe this. This is what, this I'm referring you because you do this, you know. So I think that's one thing that sets us apart too. Yeah, for sure.

And I've had that personal experience too, working with a service provider where you're like, hey, you mentioned coming on Tuesday. It's now Wednesday afternoon and I haven't even heard from you, right? So, yeah. That will never happen with us.

Never. And it's not brain surgery, you know? I mean, it's really just, but it's like, to me, that is the most important part of owning a business. Sure.

We can handle the other stuff, you know, but it's that, that relationship. Let's switch gears a little bit away from the customers and differentiating. Let's talk about a little bit about the franchise side and what does it take to start the franchise? What's the cost?

You know, where does it go? How does that part of it work when it comes to like things like the franchise fee and startup costs? Sure. Okay.

So we have two tiers that you can come in as a franchisee, you know, because we realize some people it's, you know, it could be there's a big fear of, you know, a large investment. You know, I think there are two different people who want to go all in and there are somebody that may not have the capital to go all in and want more of a home based business, which I think a lot of home services do offer. So we really wanted to do both of those things. So our tier one is it's a lower franchise fee.

It's a home based business. And the range is 67 to 157 investment range for that. So what that means is that out of our three services, they do two of those. So they can do they go sell, but they're going to sell new doors.

OK, they're not going to bring back the old doors, clean them and all of that stuff, because that's where you really need that shop. So the tier one is that they would go sell the doors, everything involved in that. We would get the doors, paint them, and deliver to them fully cured. And then so all they have to really have is a van, and you would need like one person.

You could easily do it with one employee, and they are painting the frames and then helping with the installations. So that's easy to get started. And then the tier two is where you have a fully functional shop. So with, and that is like kind of where, where we are and where you can offer everything.

So you need a minimum of a 2,500 square feet, square foot, climate controlled space. So we can be flex industrial. It just needs to be able to keep the humidity level at 50% so that the paint dries well. But that's where you can do, you can have the paint cabinets, the current cabinets, or you do new doors, new accessories, you can do everything.

And even that, you can start with one to two employees. So, I mean, we expect that people could ramp up, you know, fairly quickly. If you do the tier one and you do the home-based business, you could really be up and running in four weeks, you know, easy. If you do the other, the big ticket items on that are, that range is 137 to 281.

And that is a higher franchise fee of 49.5 the tier two is a franchise fee of 30 000. um then the the large ticket items on the tier two is just the location that you would have and then the spray booth we do a ductless spray booth so you don't have to worry about venting outside you have to do no construction to a space you don't have to worry about anything osha related it's all we use all waterborne products So with that, and so both of those, so those ranges, and then with that, you also have to have a van.

So, you know, that's why the ranges are kind of all over the place. And that includes three months of expenses. And I always tell everybody at this stage to make sure that they reference the actual franchise disclosure document in the item seven to get the breaking of all of the numbers. That way there's no confusion on that when they speak with you guys, right?

Sure. And a lot of that is just, you know, do you buy a $60,000 van or do you lease one? for you know what i mean it's like there's a lot of those decisions that that you know come into to making all that and obviously we would go over we go over with the with candidates for all of this so they totally understand i mean i think the most important thing with candidates is they want to know how much it's going to cost them and they want to know how much how quickly they're going to be earning revenue and how much that's going to be i always say there's three things they want to know they want to know how much does it cost how quickly am i going to get to where i want to be and what works in my area, right?

100%. And I mean, that's what's good about this is that, you know, it can work anywhere. Everywhere, you know, has the same state, you know, the same homes, the same, you know, age group, same people want to change, whether it's newer, older, you know, all different, all over the place. And so the way we do territories, you know, in cities, we do territories of 100,000 homeowners.

Okay. So, yeah. And then obviously that can spread out a little bit depending on sure it depends on the market area yeah now let's say that i've inquired i'm interested i'm i'm all in i'm ready to go how does the training work so take me through just that training component of it in order like i'm not a painter i i've never painted a cabinet door um or replaced one in my life now i have but you know what i saying yes yes how does that training work what are you teaching me how does the training work Sure And and this is so and I sure you hear this all the time but you do not need to be a painter to do this In fact we would rather have somebody that that's owned a business before that has never picked up a paintbrush.

Makes sense. You know, because we can teach you how to teach your staff, how to do, how to do the painting. So we have a five-day in-person training intensive training at our headquarters and so really that is focused on everything from tech and ops to sales process to um marketing you know we have an we have an extensive marketing strategy to help you get up and running um you know all so really that five-day intensive training is more towards it's like really kind of an overview so especially for the owner, for the owner operator.

I mean, they're going to pretty much learn the basics. So we, and we have, we have all kinds of videos and everything else that they can take back and watch on how to, you know, how to roll the paintbrush, how to, you know, how to do all of that kind of stuff. So what we really intend for them is when, during that training, that they understand the business and how the business works and how the business, how they can be successful. And so, I mean, a lot of that is about, you know, hiring, how you, how you find the best people, how you go about, you know, training the people, you know, and we, we love, and we will, we will also adjust the training.

So say if the owner operator comes in with one employee and that one employee is going to be more in operations, we're going to put them all in operations. You know, we're going to put them in that. So you have that five day intensive. And then we have at a minimum, a weekly meeting going on after that, where we just go over issues, anything.

Yeah. Let's talk about the support. So I'm up and running, I'm operating the business. What does support look like?

It sounds like you've got the communication component down, right? Because you've got now as a franchisor, you have two clients, right? You've got the end user consumer that you guys are really good at. What does that support and communication look like with the franchisees?

Sure. So when I, when we first started out with this. Laura Currier was my business partner. So her husband came on to work for us in 2021, and he's retired Air Force.

Okay. So he does all of our anything financial, anything tech, anything to do with the CRMs, all of that stuff. So at this point, so he and I are going to be the support. We also have a marketing person.

Okay. So really it's, you know, we're available. we're available. I mean, that's, you know, we'll get, if it's something to do with, you know, QuickBooks, they'll call him.

If it's something to do with sales estimates, they'll call me. So it's really, we are available all the time for them. I mean, and it's, I mean, that is why I think going the franchise route, that's why you do it. You know, I think I wish I would have had somebody like that with me when I, when I started this, I think we could have got started a lot quicker.

So I think that's it. It's like, you know, I mean, an operator, you know, an owner operator that comes in, they're going to have a lot of strengths, but running Facebook and social media may not be one of them. Right. So we have a marketing person where we set everything up for them.

And then we give them a library of everything they can use for ads, all of that. We have someone where they will do all of their Google ads, you know, so because that's, that's how we get a lot of clients is through Google. And so, you know, we want, that's just such a great way for them too, especially if it's a new area and they're not really well known yet in the community. So that's where you, so at this point, and obviously once we, you know, once we get growing, that will grow that staff, that support staff.

But right now, you know, it's, it's us. And I think that's, you know, the benefit of coming on early is you get all, you get all our support. That's what I was just getting ready to say is that I've, I've worked at both types of franchise companies and I will tell you a founder operated passionate franchisor, um, the first, you know, franchisees in the system get a ton of attention. They've, I don't want to speak for you, but they've got your cell phone number.

They have your email address. They've, you know, it's, it's, it's an all time on type scenario because you want to make sure that every franchise owner succeeds, but they get that extra, that extra love in that beginning where, you know, it's, I love working with founder owned businesses. Oh yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, and that's, that's, that's the whole thing.

I think, you know, when, when I started out, when I wanted to own my own business, you know, I'd gotten to a point in my life where my kids were getting older and I look five years in the future, I'm like, I'm going to have to pay for college. Right. You know? And so how am I going to do this?

I got to make some decisions. And what's amazing is that I did like everything. Well, you know, everything is paid. So I, especially as a woman, and not to say we obviously wouldn't have male owner operators because we would.

And I think we're a little bit special because we are woman and veteran owned. So we have both of those mindsets. And I think this business, it's like such an opportunity to do that for yourself, you know, to do something. If this is what your goals are, you want to have financial freedom.

You want to have all of these things and still work-life balance. I mean, which you're still, you're not working nights and weekends. You know, it's a great opportunity. Charlotte, I want to just say something that wouldn't normally be part of my questions.

I talk to a lot of franchisors. Like I think I mentioned, I've done 700 of these interviews, right? In the home services space, I don't know of many franchisors that are women-owned. And so you really lean into that.

I don't, I think my gut tells me that many women that look at franchising don't think of home services because it's fairly male dominated. Yes. Maybe that's not why they don't look, but it's just a normal thing. I think that this opportunity, I really think that's something you guys should lean into because I can see the difference when I'm interviewing you of your thought process.

And I've been married for 25 years. So, you know, my wife and I are partners in everything that I, that we do. And it's very unique in home services for it to be a woman and veteran owned. So I just didn't know if you realized how unique that actually was in your space.

Okay. Now, I appreciate you saying that. I do. Because I'm not totally.

I mean, I know it's somewhat unique. But yeah, I appreciate you saying that. Because I think that's a great idea. Let's talk about your potential franchise owners.

Like there's a lot of different personality types. And there's always businesses that fit different folks better, right? Not saying one's better than another. It's just the way they fit into how a person is.

What makes an ideal fit for you? Like if you could wave that magic wand and say, that's the perfect type of franchise owner. Tell us about their skill sets, their personalities, their backgrounds. Who are you looking for?

So really, I think first and foremost, I think you need to understand and have a passion for running your own business and, and, and managing, encouraging and growing people. Because I think that's, you know, if you have a good team, then you can do anything. And I think also you need to, when you create that team, you need to think about what you don't do, what you don't do well, and bring that in and supplement you. So I think it has to be somebody that, you know, that understands that that's willing to learn, that's willing to, um, you know, just, um, be a, be a part of a bigger team.

You know, obviously we have processes that you have to follow, but we love ideas. Like we're always open to new ideas. I mean, if there's a better way of doing something, we're all on board. So, you know, all of that just kind of working together.

Um, so from that sort of that big picture mindset, um, and that's why I kind of mentioned earlier that you don't really need to be a painter. Like for a franchise owner, I don't want them to come in and think, oh, I'm going to be the one painting the frames because that's not it. That's not, you'll never grow if you do that because you never have time to do anything else. So I think it's, you know, all of those, the being able to manage people.

I think it is being able to understand again who to bring on. I think coachability, being able to work within a system. So, and I think it's just, you know, I think the ideal candidate is going to be somebody who maybe is tired of the corporate world, want to do something for themselves. And that's why I really, I kind of, you know, I lean into the women because I think you get a lot of women who are in their forties and who fifties and raise their children.

They they're still overachievers. You know, they did that and they're ready to do something else. So I think that's a lot of it. It's really just a lot about that people oriented, community oriented.

You need to be able to go out and sell what you're doing. That the thing too because that owner operator is going to be the one out selling jobs getting jobs And if they not if it is if somebody does buy this and that is not their strength they have got to hire somebody who does That makes sense to me. Let's talk a little bit about that. That's my very next question.

Tell us about, and look, there's all different things that happen as a business owner. No two days are the same, but on average, you see general trends of what an owner is doing. generally speaking, what's an average day in the life of a franchise owner? So I would say for the first couple of months, they're going to be getting their hands dirty.

And so I think that's okay because they, in order to really sell something, you really have to know what it takes. You know, you really have to know the worth of the product. So what, how, and how it's worked out with our other franchisees that, you know, she, she, I would say half of the time is spent marketing, doing estimates, you know, selling, getting out with the community, making contacts, all of those sort of things more on like the sales side. And then the like the finance side, like, you know, running her doing her QuickBooks, those sort of things.

And then so if you start and so you have one employee, then you're probably going to be you're going to be helping go in, you're going to be taking down doors, you're going to be coming back and cleaning doors. You may be helping, you know, you may be doing, you'll be doing some of that stuff in the beginning, just as your business ramps up. And then so in the kind of the way we do it, it's like if you, if you have one employee and they're doing the painting and the spraying and you're helping supplement that you're helping cleaning, doing whatever, then you're doing one job a week.

Once you get booked out four to six weeks, then it's time to bring on somebody else. because at that point you're going to start losing business. So it's like, kind of like, you know, when to scale. So, you know, I think that's something it's just, you know, and we work through them with that because that's really, you've got to know when to bring on new people, when to have the right people.

You're, if you're too busy cleaning doors and doing all that, you're not selling. So you're not getting new business. So, I mean, just having that balance is really important. And that's what we're there to help them with that.

Well, that's something that's really good to hear too, Charlotte, because not every company knows exactly when they should bring someone on. It's like when you get busier, you should bring someone on. It sounds like you know pretty much, okay, you're doing one job a week. When you get out four to six weeks, that's the time to hire that person.

It sounds like it's really systemized on when you know when to bring somebody on. Completely. I mean, and it's the same with if you're the owner operator and you're doing, you know, you're doing six to eight estimates a week, it's probably time to bring on a project manager, right? You know, who's answering the phones and setting your calendar.

And, and, you know, because there is a lot of that project piece it's, you know, so there's, I think that's where a lot of, and especially I see a lot of contractors fail is they don't bring on people when they need it. So it's, it's not that they don't do a good job, it's that the organization is not there because they're trying to do everything at one time. That makes a lot of sense. Let's switch back to the franchisor side just a bit here.

So you want to learn about the folks, they want to learn about you. What does that mutual due diligence process look like? What are the milestone steps? Are they speaking with you?

Do they get an email? Like what happens when they inquire about your business? Sure. So it's a couple different ways.

So they inquire. We get it. We do have a CRM. So we will put them into that.

And they, if they log into that, it will take them through all different steps. So if they don't log into that, I follow up. You know, some people like to do that. Some people don't.

So either way, what's going to happen is they're going to get contacted by us, email, text, phone. Then if they want to have a discussion, want to find out more about it, they're talking to me and I go over, answer any of their questions, you know, tell them kind of the basics. So then we have a whole set of presentations that they can go through. So we have a first presentation that just talks about the opportunity.

It tells a little bit about our history, you know, tells a little bit how we got to where we are, what the basics, the investment ranges, you know, all of those kind of things. So then once they get through that, we have another conversation. and then we have another, we have a marketing presentation and we have a tech and ops presentation. So all of that information is already there.

So it's just depends on, you know, their level of interest. And, you know, and we're always, we're open, you know, we're talking through this whole thing. You know, I mean, I think right from the very beginning, we just want to walk with them through this. Like, I mean, I understand like what a huge decision this is and it's, you don't, you shouldn't take it lightly and we don't want them to take it lightly.

I mean, we want to make sure they're a good fit for us and we're a good fit for them. So, but yeah, we have all of these different presentations that give them a lot of information. Pretty much we've got, you know, all the tools, all of that stuff. So, you know, that's ready to go.

They can find out all kinds of things. All right, great. Now, as we finish up here, I just have a couple of final questions here for you. How can folks learn more about your franchise?

What's the best way for someone to go learn and reach out to you? Do you want them to call you, email you, go to the website? What's your preference on where you'd like folks to start? I mean, really, I mean, people can certainly call me.

They can email me at charlotte at joyfulcabinet.com. We have all the information on our website. There's a contact form there.

So our website has a lot of information, like initial information, FAQs, things like that. So they can get that. They fill out a form. As soon as they fill out for them.

I'll get it. I'll give them a call. They can find me on LinkedIn. They can find us on social media.

You know, it really, I mean, so a lot of, I mean, email's great. You know, that can just certainly get it going. But the website, they can get a lot of information too from there. So I would definitely put people towards that.

Sure. Sounds good. And I'll make sure to collect all that from you and we'll include it and hyperlink it right here below the episode so they can just click right on it and go right to where you want them to go then. How about that?

Great. Perfect. All Right. So anything else you want to share with our folks, a quick recap, just kind of tell them, you know, what, you know, what excites you about the industry and the business?

What does the future look like? Anything like that? Yeah. I mean, the home services business, the home service industry is just such a great place to be.

And, you know, I think there, there are some competitors out there, but there's very few competitors that are apples to apples. You know, there's a lot of painters out there, but most painters do not want to do cabinets. There are some refacers out there, but that's a totally different product. And it's typically a lot more expensive than we are.

I think one of the things as a business owner and as a franchisor came on, they would want to know how they are going to get into their customers and how are they going to find their customers. I think that's going to be the first question is what are you going to do to set me up for success? So part of that, I don't think we really touched on a lot was the marketing strategy. We put a lot of energy into that.

And so they're going to get all of that because there may be some owner operators, especially if they're my age, where social media is just not their forte. So we want to help them with that. And we have the support in place to help them with that, because I think that's the like, how am I going to get my clients? I can do all this, but how am I going to get that?

So that we want them to know, I mean, that we're going to help them every step of the way. And that and that even though, you know, that we have competitors out there, which in a way is good because that means there is business. Right. And so, you know, and we feel very confident that if we can get in front of these people, we can win, you know, depend, you know, because we can fit where we have put our business because we want to bring joy to every home is that we can meet everybody where to meet their vision and their budget.

So we can go anywhere to multimillion dollar homes to small condos. So I think that's what's really important too, is that we, you know, we're able to go across large demographics to find these clients. And so the way and then also a lot of what our culture and this is another thing when we're looking at franchisors or franchisees is what they want. They need to understand our culture and our culture is to take care of our clients and it is to communicate and all of that.

And so I think that is another piece that really sets us apart from a lot of competitors. So I just think that the main thing I would say is that anybody that's starting to open, you know, that is thinking about wanting to start their own business. Franchising is a great way to do it. You have support all along.

And, you know, I just think we have a great product. I think we have a great process. And, you know, I just think it would be, gives a lot of opportunities for people who are looking, you know, for some financial freedom. Well, there you have it.

Thank you so much, Sharla. Sharla Lee, the CEO and co-founder of Joyful Cabinet Painting. If you do talk with Sharla, let her know that you listened into this episode because that allows her to know that you already have a bit of the information and kind of digest it as well. Charlotte, thank you so much.

Thank you. It's been great.