It was in the summer of July 2015, that Dave Sullivan, of Priority 1 Franchising, sold his first America’s Swimming Pool Company (ASP) franchise unit planned to open up in Queen Creek, Arizona.
Building a Relationship with ASP
Rewinding back to Orlando, Florida, at the 2014 International Franchise Conference and Expo, Dave met Tom and began conversations with him about entertaining ASP’s rebound leads, and although nothing solidified with that topic, a lucrative relationship was created. As the event came to a close, the newly formed business relationship continued beyond the conference walls, and Dave started to love the idea of the pool service. Residing in Florida with his wife Kim, he was very familiar with the popularity of swimming pools and the lucrative business it provided so many business owners. Dave also knows how hard it is to get good, quality service for the consumer.
The franchise conference wasn’t the first time that Dave was introduced to the ASP brand. The FBA hosted ASP during some of it’s weekly online webinars and began to expose this up-and-coming franchise, not just to Dave, but to the entire FBA Broker Member community.
When Dave and Tom continued to meet and discuss the benefits of owning an ASP franchise, Dave learned about all of the great reasons why he should start offering this franchise concept to his current pipeline of prospects. Some of the key factors that caught his attention were that it was an affordable investment with a good ROI, easy to understand and manage, can be owner operated, and can be scaled up if the franchisee decided to do so.
In addition, Dave kept reflecting back to his positive interactions with him during the conference and liked the way Tom dealt with both him and his wife. Tom was very forthcoming, and was very good at delivering clear and accurate information about his company.
“Tom carried through with the deal too with great follow through. He’s excellent at helping people through the process.”
Introducing The Perfect Match
One of the qualities that makes Tom and ASP a franchisor success story is their willingness and genuine desire to service the broker and their client. Tom made it clear to Dave that he will make himself available at every turn to ensure a solid process from start to finish.
Through his conversations with the franchisor, Dave was keenly aware of the types of candidates that work best with ASP. It was by pure coincidence that Dave immediately found someone he believed would be a great fit. He initially showed his candidate five concepts, one of which was ASP. At first, the client wasn’t interested in owning a pool service company. Without pressuring the candidate into a concept or direction to commit to, they moved on.
The candidate was intrigued at the low-pressure sales approach and wondered why Dave didn’t want try to sell him on any of them. Dave explained that he’s not here to sell him. His job is simply to understand his needs and present the concepts that he knows would be a good fit and explain why. If the client doesn’t feel like learning more or working with a particular franchise that would be it. A few days after this conversation, the candidate spent some time considering Dave’s points. Ultimately, he came back and was interested in learning more about ASP.
The client began to realize that the franchise would be a good fit for him personally and his local area of Arizona. Dave then scheduled a meeting with Tom which had an excellent outcome. After the call, ASP took advantage of their area developer who was able to meet with him in person and joined them on the calls as well.
“When you work with Tom, he provides a system and a process that is excellent. He has an excellent demeanor and personality. Tom’s process is very thorough. Educated them very well. Going over detailed demographics, number of pool models, and other pertinent business information.”
Dave and Tom immediately set up a regular schedule of conducting conference calls every Thursday with the candidate, from 8-9pm. Tom continually went above and beyond to help educate the client and to provide the resources and information he needed to make a decision.
The Deciding Factors
Some of the qualities that were valuable and helped the candidate make a decision towards investing in an ASP franchise business were:
- Quick start and ramp-up process.
- Potential income compared to the investment was amazing.
- Failure rate was very low.
- 95% success rate with existing ASP franchisees.
- Very few terminations and failures.
- ASP develops the franchisee website and online marketing including PPC, Social Media, and Direct Mail.
- Provide administrative and back-end support.
- ASP ensures that the candidate has the funding to be successful.
- The franchisee never feels alone and gets full support.
The Perfect Candidate
The candidate himself had a hard-working personality but was not really strong in sales. The “perfect match” element between franchisor and franchise broker trickled all the way down to the candidate, and ASP proved to be the right fit for the potential investor. The candidate originally held a career designing telecommunication systems and was usually strapped to a desk all day. Whenever the opportunity and time allowed, he tried to venture on his own in the home inspection industry, while keeping his family secure with salaried jobs. He then worked for the state of Maine designing sewer systems but wasn’t successful at it. He decided to move to Arizona to pursue high-paying offers and a promise to have more freedom and flexibility but was let down and strapped to a desk again working many hours on tasks he wasn’t passionate about. His job choices and career just wouldn’t give him the time he wanted to be with his family and weren’t providing him with the income and financial freedom he felt he deserved.
The Close
The entire franchise process took six weeks to close. The initial introduction call was made on May 5, 2015. Dave then scheduled various activities for the candidate to utilize, including the Zoracle SpotOn! business assessment tool and other useful franchise resources that are built directly into his Priority One broker website.
After going through various franchise concepts, Dave presented the ASP franchise concept to the candidate on May 25. Within a couple of weeks, the decision to move forward and start the process with ASP, including applying for the type of funding, was made on June 15. By July 12, 2015, the entire process was completed and the candidate was the new owner of an ASP franchise and ready to fulfill his dream of owning his own business, being his own boss, and now being able to control his time with his family.
