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Adam Goldman, a top franchise consultant and entrepreneur, has spent over 20 years helping people achieve financial independence through franchise ownership. He founded successful companies in IT and real estate and notably grew the Vanguard Cleaning Area Developer concept in Houston into a multi-million-dollar enterprise with 30+ franchisees and 300 customers. In his book The Franchisee Lifestyle, Adam shares insights from franchisees, offering practical advice to help readers make informed decisions and avoid pitfalls. His expertise empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to build successful businesses and achieve their dreams through franchising.

 

In this episode, Jason and Adam discuss:

  • Franchising goes far beyond fast food, spanning over 75 diverse industries
  • Semi-absentee franchises let busy professionals run a business without quitting their day jobs
  • Misconceptions often hold people back from exploring the real benefits of franchising
  • Adam helps match candidates to the right brand based on skills, goals, and lifestyle
  • Franchising can be a strategic path out of corporate life—without taking a huge leap

Key Takeaways:

  • Often overlooked is the vast reach of franchising—it’s not just food; it opens doors to real estate, senior care, pest control, salon suites, and dozens more industries ripe with opportunity.
  • The idea that franchise ownership demands a full-time commitment is turned on its head through semi-absentee models, allowing professionals to build wealth without leaving their 9-to-5.
  • At the heart of Adam’s approach is deep personalization—he listens, evaluates, and connects candidates to brands that align with both their lifestyle and long-term goals.
  • Not all franchises are built the same. The difference often lies in culture, leadership, and systems that can either elevate or hinder success.
  • The franchising model rewards those who follow proven systems—ideal for structure-loving operators, but a challenging fit for visionaries who prefer rewriting the rulebook.

 


“It comes down to whether or not someone can follow a system or a plan. If you're the kind of person that doesn't want to follow a model, then you're probably not a great fit for franchising.”

 - Adam Goldman

Connect with Adam Goldman:

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Listen to the podcast here:

 

Adam Goldman- The Franchise Lifestyle

Hello and welcome everybody to this episode of The Insight Interviews. This is your host, Jason Abell, and I've got a guest today that I'm particularly excited about. You know, of the 300 or so episodes that we've done, I don't know that we've had anybody that is specialized in the industry that we're about to talk about today, which is franchising. So, my guest today is none other than Adam Goldman. Adam is the author of a book “The Franchise Lifestyle”, which, by the way, that really caught my attention, Adam. We're gonna certainly talk about that, but Adam is a franchise consultant who is an experienced investor, serial entrepreneur and master franchiser. Get this. Adam has founded three companies on two continents, which we are going to talk about, and he specializes in helping other people build wealth through franchises. Adam, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much.

I got three opening questions for you, but the first question that we ask all of our guests is, who or what are you especially grateful for today, as you and I engage one another?

I'm just, every day, I'm really trying to think of a three things that I'm most grateful for, things that have happened, and it's family for me, for sure. I'm just very blessed with three daughters that are seven, nine and 13, and it wasn't so easy for my wife and I to have kids, and we're just blessed every day, and I'm grateful for it every day.

At those ages, being a dad myself, we're empty nesters, I'm a little bit further along the journey than you are, but I remember those days and Adam, I'm going to venture to say that there's never a dull moment in your household right now.

Oh my gosh. It's getting more and more interesting.

I bet. I bet. So, another one of my questions I was just kind of thinking of as I was looking over your material over the last few days is, you've got some unique experiences, and so I'm going to ask you this, like, kind of icebreaker question, if you will, which is, what is something that's not in your bio, that's not on LinkedIn, I've even seen you on TikTok, that's not on there, what is something that most people just don't know about you that's particularly interesting?

I have this obsession with Jigsaw Puzzles. Not trying to geek out on this, but it's like, for me, a jigsaw puzzle is so fascinating because it's about how you solve it or not. How are you going to do it from the outside in or the inside out? And I get this joy from actually finishing it up, kind of like a 5k race or 10k race, or even a half marathon. It's like, okay, how's this thing going to finish? How long is it going to take? What's the strategy to do this? And I just get into it and kind of get in what they call it deep work, or whatever that zone is. I get into that zone when I'm doing it.

You and my wife. She's obsessed with puzzles as well, and I've seen her in that zone. So, as you're kind of like talking about that, I'm picturing you being completely focused and concentrated on that. Well, let's go to being concentrated on franchises. What do you say? It seems to be a topic that you know a little something about. Do you like to franchise out on us a little bit?

Absolutely. So, look, what I can tell you is, when I invested in my franchise 15 years ago, I actually didn't know much about the industry. My assumption, just like many others, is when I think of franchises, I think about McDonald's and french fries and being an owner operator, maybe flipping burgers in the back. And so, what I found about this industry is it's perfect for people like myself. People that are really good at following a plan, but not as good about creating a process from scratch. And that's really the value of franchising in general, from a very high level. I connect my candidates with brands in 75 different industries, but it's really a situation where, in essence, you are trading money in the form of franchise fees and royalty fees in exchange for a business process and a brand name.

So, that's a great entry. And you're right. When I think about franchises, I've seen headlines and other material by other people that do things similar to what you do, it still, to me, seems like a lot of work. But when I look at the title of your book, “The Franchise Lifestyle”, and really, just what you just said there, Adam, I'm thinking that that's not the case. And so, there's a line in there, and I'm not going to get this exactly right, where you talk about, hey, this can be people's exit strategy from corporate America, where they don't need to quit their day job type of thing, and so, for the commoner like me, that thinks of like, kind of like you said, either an owner operator, or just kind of a lot of work, like, could you just spell a little bit? Or just maybe correct my thinking and others thinking around that?

So, look, just like anything in life, I believe that there are different shades, right? So, in the franchising world, there are shades of how much time or effort you need to spend in the business. And certainly, I have businesses where you're required to be working in it full-time. On the other side of the spectrum, I don't have anything that is fully absentee. If someone's looking for something where you don't have to do anything at all, I would encourage them to invest in an index fund, right?

Sure, right.

But I have things that are on the other side of the spectrum, and they're semi absentee businesses. And look, I mean, just to kind of talk about examples, I have some businesses out there that are real estate related, where you don't have any employees at all. And look, someone that's a successful executive could potentially run this business part time. Now, I’m not saying that it's part time from the very beginning, right? The very beginning, especially if you have a spouse, that's always a plus for franchise candidates. You could have a situation where if you have a business like this, with no employees at all, you can do many things on your cell phone, and in much less than 40 hours per week.

What's an example of what you're talking about?

So, let's talk about one of my favorite industries in franchising, and that's in Salon Suites, right? So, I'm talking about situations where you might have Best Buy, or you might have Chuck E Cheese within five miles of my house, you have two of those that just didn't make it because of economics, but instead, a Salon Suite came in, and the value proposition is, you come to people that are in the beauty industry, and by the way, there's a misconception, again. Many people in beauty industry that are the best in what they do, whether or not it's hair coloring, eyelash extension, they're really great, and they actually are making a lot of money, and landlords typically don't want to have anything to do with them. And that's where you come in, where you lease space for a certain rate, and you sublease it to these people for a higher margin than that.

Okay, yeah. You've already piqued my interest. So again, for the heck of it, we're here, let's dive deeper into something like that. So, somebody reaches out to you and said, hey, Adam, I heard you on that podcast, The Insight Interviews, and you talked about me staying in my corporate job because I'm good at it, maybe I don't love it, and maybe I don't see myself doing that forever, but you talked about this thing that is semi absentee. Yeah, tell me more about that.

So, look, the way that my process works is it's not like I talk to someone and say, hey, you should really do this, right? I see my service as almost being like eHarmony or Match.com for the franchising world, right? So, just to kind of talk about the process, first I get to know my candidates. I ask them to fill out a very quick survey, and then I have a more in-depth conversation with them and anyone else involved in the decision, right? And then after that, I actually write a two-page letter or model where I'm looking at characteristics of an ideal franchise and one of those, obviously would be resources available, but also things such as, how much time do they want to spend in the business? And only then would I go ahead and connect them with three different brands. And look, when I'm getting them three brands, I want them to compare and contrast different options. And the first thing that I talk to about as a possibility is something that's brick-and-mortar retail, but let's kind of not talk about the advantages of non-brick and mortar businesses. Look, I'm also not saying that I connect you or anyone with this, but just as an example, if someone's in Houston, Texas, and they're looking for a really great, scalable business, mosquito spraying is always an option. It’s not very glamorous, but the margins are crazy high, and the demand is never going anywhere.

Okay. Adam, I want to ask you more about that, and then I want to ask you for an example. What is that business, by the way?

Mosquito spraying. I mean, look, I actually believe there's money in muck, right? And no joke. I mean, I have brands that are literally porta potties and dumpsters and scooping up poop. And, I mean, I also have brand or senior care, right? Not the world's most glamorous thing. But I also have brands that are mosquito spraying, where literally someone raises their hand and says, hey, I want you to come every week or every two weeks, and I want you to spray for mosquitoes, and it takes 15 or 20 minutes. It's a lot of money that you get, and you're spending pennies on the dollars in order to spray.

Okay, got it, yeah. In fact, I've been a consumer who has hired those types of companies. So, I get that, and I'm very happy to pay whatever it was, 20 or 30 bucks a week, or every two weeks or something, to not have mosquitoes in my backyard. So, and I'm assuming, yeah, you're right, if that takes 15 minutes, the margins are probably pretty high on that. So, I get it now, and I think what you're saying is you don't need to be the person that's doing the spraying, you just need to own the franchise and set that up. Not just but set that up, and then there's probably some element of autopilot there.

Well, look, I'm so glad you brought that up, Jason, because what I would tell you is this as well. Not every franchise brand is created equally, right? I mean, there's another misconception in my industry that says that all franchises are the same, and I would argue that all franchises are not alike at all. I mean, I can give you the most amazing business and the most amazing franchisor that has great culture and great processes, and I can also give you a similar industry, frankly, or talk to you about a franchise that doesn't have the same secret sauce or selling point or unique angle on the business. And just even looking around, are you more likely to go to Bojangles or to Chick fil A? Nothing against Bojangles.

Right. Right. I get it. Okay, so, let's do this. Let's do a mock scenario here. Is that cool?

Yeah, please.

I'm just kind of thinking of this on the fly. So, I'm just thinking about, you know, our clientele that we've served over 10 years now. We have clients that have done exactly what you're talking about. So, somebody fills out your survey, and let's say they're an executive, or whatever, they have a job, and they've been franchise curious, right? Because maybe they hear something like what we're doing now, or they see a headline, or read an article somewhere, and they go, okay, fine, I'll fill out this survey. Adam, I've got 10 hours a week, this is my background, this is my financial situation, I don't know if that's a question that you ask. What do you need to know? What are my next steps?

So, I mean, I wish it was so easy, right? I'm gonna give you, bang, bang, bang. It's more kind of finding out motivations, right? Why they're looking to do this? What is their skill set? Are they great at selling or not? What are their values, in general? Which territories are available in their market? Do they prefer blue collar employees or white-collar employees? Do they have a head count?. I mean, I can go on and on and on. I really dig deep into my candidates and I typically spend hours with them to get to know them before I actually present them. So, it's, it's a little bit more nuanced about these questions and things of that sort. What their favorite job was, why they liked it. Also, kind of going towards things such as risk aversion, right? Because frankly, I have certain brands that are very exciting but might have a higher risk than a blue chip name that really has a great track record.

Makes sense. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so, you just mentioned things that might go on your survey, getting to know them, the nuances. I do see people that kind of get excited about this idea of franchising, but then they think this thing or that thing, or they're not really sure. I know in your book you've got myths about franchising. What are some of the top myths that that you like to dispel?

So, great question. First myth would be it's only about McDonald's and french fries, right? I work with brands in 75 industries, and food is just one of them. A second myth is you need to spend millions of dollars to invest in a franchise. I brought up one idea, and I know it's not a glamorous idea. Mosquito spraying, right? That’s all in, we're talking about 125 to 150 and there's financing available for that business, as well. And I think the other myth I would say is that many people that are in franchising, their thought is that, gee, I'm not going to get any value at all from a franchise brand, right? I'm going to pay this money and they're not going to do anything for me. On the other side of the coin, some people think that they're going to do everything, right? It's somewhere in between, right? Meaning they're not necessarily going to find that location for you. They might help you to find that location, but they're not going to hire people for you. They’re going to tell you these are the characteristics of the ideal place you need to kind of go there and find it, or they might give you some sort of marketing program, but you're going to have to go out and make it happen as well.

Yeah, interesting. Okay.

Training wheels.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, that makes sense. Any other myths, though, before I move on?

Those are the top three that come to mind right now.

Yeah, yeah, and how about if we go to the other side, which is the person. Probably in your years of experience with this, I'm going to bet you can feel out pretty quickly, like you know what?? This person is going to be ideal for this franchise thing. And I know they come in different shades, like you said, and I'm sure different personality profiles may favor this set of brands versus this set of brands, I get all that, but is there an ideal candidate when people come to you where you're like, man, this is probably gonna work out really well for this person? Like, what does that profile of person look like?

Let's talk about the shades of candidates. And for me, the driver, presuming that everyone has the same sort of resources, is sales experience. I'm really looking to see how good they are at selling in general, and if they're not great at selling, are they at least open to kind of themselves or a staff member to be following up on leads, right? And what I mean is the way I look at the scale or spectrum is I have certain brands that are very sales heavy, that are specifically looking for people that love cold calling. And then on the other side of the spectrum, I have people that are just kind of order takers, right? Certain business models, let's talk about maid services, right? Or swimming lesson instruction. It's insatiable demand, right? It becomes more of an operational challenge about filling this need of these people that are looking for your service and that's a much different challenge than going and knocking on doors and cold calling.

Yep, that makes sense. That makes sense. And so, anything else? When you say shades, if people are listening to us and they're thinking to themselves, gosh, I wonder if I'm any of those shades, you know? What are some questions that maybe they should ask themselves before they seek out counsel from somebody like you?

So, I think the number one thing, too, frankly, is whether or not they're the kind of person that can follow a system or a plan. If you're the kind of person that doesn't want to follow a model, then you probably are not a great fit for franchising, right? If you're the kind of person that owns a McDonald's franchise and wants to tweak that menu and start selling other things besides McDonald's, you don't like gold golden arches, you want to make them something else, then you're probably not getting good value. And all the respect in the world for that, those kind of entrepreneurs, but a specific type of entrepreneur is the kind of entrepreneur, Jason, that they see something that is a great system, and they want to kind of follow that system or even kind of tweak it a little bit, as opposed to reinventing the wheel.

Yep. Yep. So, sales, organization, following a system. If you're hearing some of those buzz words from Adam, and you're like, yeah, I'm interested in that type of thing and those are my attributes, those are some of my qualities, then, hey, franchising might be right for you.

Absolutely. And also, people, I would say, too. I mean the people business, right? I mean, you've got to be great at managing people. I have this amazing candidate of mine who's been in the franchising world for about 10 or 15 years. He's a pastor during the day, and I've never seen anyone with his talent to kind of in the morning talk to his staff for coffee, and then they kind of do their thing over the course of the day. So, he's investing a lot in that half hour an hour in relationships in the morning, but kind of going to his church in the afternoon.

Sure. So, I'm going to ask you both sides of of a coin, which is I want to go disaster and then I want to go success story.

Awesome.

So tell us what are in your years of watching this and experiencing this, what are some either matches, okay, I'm excited about this brand, and I'm gonna get the loan and do the thing and whatever, what's the biggest disaster that you've seen so far?

For me, the hardest thing in the franchising world was the pandemic, because it was so unexpected. Now, if you're in California, you're really not doing so great, but if you're in Texas, and you invest in a fitness franchise, and then two months later, the pandemic happens, and you're undercapitalized to begin with, timings everything in my industry, and that makes me feel sad as well, when that happens.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, things that are that are out of your control.

Black swan events, right?

Yeah, yeah.

What's exciting is I we talked about the Salon Suite industry. I'm actually very excited. I'm going to be visiting with two candidates that are both successful in that industry in Kansas City and also in Columbus. One of them is the franchisee of the year. It's a situation where her and her husband, he's a fortune 500 executive, and he always wanted to start a business, but he just kind of was sidetracked by his successful corporate career, and they knew nothing about this industry, and got started. They were 90% full within a couple months of their first location. Second location, they decided to invest in real estate, and actually they own the dirt underneath, which is actually a great way to make even additional money, because you can have a lease buyback. I'm not a sophisticated real estate guy, but that's something that's really interesting as well. A great way to make money. And then they have their third location as well, and I’m going to visit them for the first time in a couple weeks’ time as well.

Okay, so that would be on the successful side of it.

Yep.

Okay, okay, great. What am I not asking you about? I mean, franchising in this industry is certainly not my expertise. I've been curious about it from time to time, but there's gotta be questions that I don't even know to ask you that would be important for us to be talking about during this type of conversation.

So, I've been in this industry now for 15 years, right? I've had this role for over eight years, and I think that the biggest interesting thing about this is the mix between non brick and mortar businesses and brick and mortar businesses.

Okay.

 

And when I talk about brick and mortar, I'm talking about having a storefront or a retail location, right? So, some examples of that would be McDonald's, right? Or orange theory, fitness. And a non-brick and mortar business might be something as mosquito spray, right? Or a home maid service or something to that of that effect. Each of these have their advantages and disadvantages, and when I stared this, I was doing a lot of brick and mortar placements. And what I found recently is that there's more and more interest in non-brick and mortar businesses. They have certain advantages. One of them is not having to invest in an expensive lease for 10 years.

Sure yeah. Makes sense.

So that's one thing that I look at in my goal with my investigation my candidates is kind of to give them options that are different, that they can compare and contrast against one another.

What are some exciting franchisees? And I don't know if it's just a category or a specific brand that you want to call out. What are some new and exciting franchisees these days?

I'm not going to talk about specific brands. I see things all the time. I get excited about boring businesses. But if you said, hey, Adam, what's the latest, hottest thing? For whatever reason I get excited about soccer. I just feel like soccer is going to be a great avenue right now, and especially with the World Cup coming to Texas and other places the United States in 2026, so instead of renting out offices or spaces to beauty professionals, I have different concepts where you're renting out soccer fields, and I think that really has a lot of legs. It's a low employee head count. Another thing that really comes to mind for me that I'm very excited about now that's not a very exciting business, but for whatever reason, could have some demographics, and frankly, because just it's out of favor in general, is I love things related to the senior industry. Especially for my candidates that have excellence in operations. And also, to the idea of the whole silver tsunami, I just think that there's insatiable demand for the senior industry, and many franchise brands are in senior care.

Okay, all right. Very interesting. So, soccer, senior care, and then franchisees that don't have brick and mortar, which, yeah, that's exciting. Nobody likes leases. You talked about the pandemic earlier, and I know a lot of industries that we serve, man, leases were devastating. So yeah, that that makes a ton of sense. Any role that AI is playing in in the industry that that you serve, Adam?

I'm glad you brought that up, right? So, AI actually, I’m a big believer in the prof G podcast, right?

Oh yeah.

Scott Galloway, I actually met him. We both went to Berkeley.

Oh, there you go.

A great guy. So, look, my take on AI is, is that if you're in business, the business that's not that's going to compete against you is not necessarily AI itself, but run by someone that understands AI better than you, right? That's the whole idea. And I actually want to talk about my role, and how my role is affected by AI or not. I would argue that my role as a connector becomes even more significant in the AI world, because I don't care if you have the most amazing module in the world or LLM, you're not going to find out these nuances that I know as an insider in the franchising world. Things such as even recent data about who's really doing well or who isn't doing well in specific businesses. That's not the kind of thing that chat GPT is going to tell you or not. That's where my information becomes even more relevant in the world for AI.

Yeah. My partner at Rewire just did a video, it was either today or yesterday, on exactly what you're talking about. He literally just held up his phone and did a little video and he was mocking the fact that it was just a real video with him giving his opinion on something, as opposed to something that some AI bot came up with. And so yeah, I hear you loud and clear. And so, for what it's worth, you don't need you know your podcast host to agree with you or not, but I do in this circumstance, where I do think that your role in the service that you provide, even maybe you're augmented in some way with AI, but there will still be a need for you, and maybe even more of a need for what you do moving forward. And so, yeah, I'm a big fan of everything that AI is doing, for sure, but at the same time, there's a saying that I have when I'm in front of groups that nothing takes the place of being face to face, and you and I are somewhat face to face right now, right? We're over Zoom, but if you and I were literally in the same room right now, it's just an elevated, different experience. So, as you and I wrap today, Adam, maybe I'll ask the similar question, is there anything that you want people out there to know? Anything around the topic of franchising that you would like people to know out there? 

So, I offer free 15-minute consultations. If I don't think you're a fit for the franchise world, I promise to let you know, right? I have most franchise brands that are looking for people that have at least $50,000 in cash and a net worth of 150k or more, including their house or their 401K. There are a lot of financing options available in the franchising world and I'd love to kind of chat with you, and if I don't think you're a fit, I promise to let you know.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. What’s the easiest way for people to reach out, if they're franchise curious, like we just talked about, and something that you said piqued their interest, what's the easiest way for people to get a hold of you for that appointment?

So, I have two websites. FranchiseAdam.com is just kind of a website to book a time with me for 15 minutes. The second way is just going to FranchiseCoach.net, where you'll see examples of my work in the past and kind of a little bit more about what I do. And you can also book time there.

Well, that second website that you mentioned, I was on that website this morning, and I looked at some of the examples of the people that you serve, and if nothing else, if you're listening to this, let's say you're on your run, or you're on your commute, and you're not even interested in opening up a franchise, go look at some of those stories, because they're quite they're quite interesting. So, Adam, thank you so much for your expertise. Thank you for what you're doing out there. This summer, because we're moving and we're going to be hiring a different mosquito spray company, I will be thinking of you. And so, thank you for that. Thank you for your expertise and your time today, my friend.

Thank you so much, Jason, it's great chatting with you today.

All right, that is Adam Goldman, until next time, my friend. Well, there you have it. Adam Goldman, I tell you what, I've talked to a lot of people in the franchising industry over the years, and I need to say this. Adam, that dude is extremely knowledgeable, extremely confident, and I know that if I were looking into franchises, Adam might be the first person that I call. But this is not an advertisement for him. I'm supposed to be telling you what insights that I took away, and one of them is just the confidence. And I did my research on Adam. That dude is all over social media. He's got a ton of followers on LinkedIn, and that doesn't happen by chance, that happens because you provide value, on that platform. And so, his idea of really talking to people in depth and finding out a ton about them before he recommends that you look at a particular brand. I just like his idea of the different shades of personality profiles and gifted zones that would be good to operate a franchisee, along with the shades of the different franchises in that industry. So those were my insights. I really appreciated this conversation. I hope you did too. But again, it doesn't matter what my insights were as the host of this show, but what really matters, dear listeners, are what insights did you have?

                                                                                                             ---

Thanks for reading. If you got any value at all from this episode, a little nugget all the way up to some big, huge insight, please do us a solid by subscribing, recommending, rating, and reviewing us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google. That stuff matters to us, and it allows us to continue interviewing more awesome people.


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