From incentive programs to reduce initial costs to the utilization of social media to engage with different audiences, franchisors are trying to reach younger generations in ways they haven’t before.
Authority Brands is one company that’s embraced younger owners. The platform company of home services brands includes the likes of Mosquito Squad, America’s Swimming Pool Company and DoodyCalls.
Mosquito Squad’s territory in central Illinois fell under new ownership this year as brothers Nick and Aaron Schober, who are 26 and 24, respectively, acquired the location that covers cities such as Bloomington and Springfield.
“I graduated high school in 2017 and worked for Mosquito Squad for a full season,” said Aaron Schober. “I’d always helped out in between jobs, and in 2022 we had some serious talks with the owners of the franchise.”
The Schobers took over in January 2023, and while they’ve had to learn a lot fast, they’re also drawing on their prior experience.
Oddly enough, Aaron Schober never wanted to own a franchise. After all, “why couldn’t I just go out there and kill mosquitos on my own?” he said. It was the support structure at Mosquito Squad that attracted him and his brother to the brand. Since the concept was proven and already had the marketing in place, it just made sense to Schober to take the next step.
Nick and Aaron Schober, owners of the Central Illinois Mosquito Squad.
Schober has found that being welcoming and open is one key to success and helpful in retaining employees. They host company breakfasts, for example, and stay close to their team in the field to ensure workers have what they need to succeed.
“Me and my brother being younger owners, I’d say most of the guys working for us are older than us,” said Schober. “However, I think a lot of them look up to us, it’s like we’re one of them.”
Age gap awkwardness aside, Schober wouldn’t change his career path. His advice for franchisees his age is simply to go in with an open mind and utilize a proven brand to succeed.
Will Stanley, an America’s Swimming Pool franchisee in Charlotte, North Carolina, has been maintaining pools since he was 26 years old. Ten years later, Stanley is mentoring someone like him: Macaden Fulk, a 2020 college graduate.
A maintenance manager at Stanley’s location, Fulk had interned with ASP and joined full time in February, attending the brand’s Pool School to prepare. “I wanted to get out of the more corporate field,” said Fulk. “I like a small business feel a lot better than a big corporate company.”
Fulk’s father is one of Stanley’s partners in ASP, so he grew up with the brand in his life. Stanley also grew up in an entrepreneurial family, though working with ASP turned out to be a surprise 10 years ago.
“It came time to meet my partners who were in my hometown,” said Stanley. “I went over to talk to them about what I thought was a cabinet business and it turns out they were purchasing a new territory for one of the ASP locations in Charlotte and needed somebody to run it.”
Stanley took up the challenge, living and breathing ASP for several years. The best piece of advice he offered Fulk? Recognizing a business is just that.
“I think for me to stay motivated my headspace has to stay clear and concise to keep my business running,” said Stanley. “This is business, businesses don’t have feelings.”
Even more simply put, do what you need to do. For Stanley, this means it’s not necessarily about everyone liking him. At the end of the day, his goal is to make money, he said, and that’s an important aspect to remember. Picking battles and making quick decisions are what made him successful in the beginning, and continues to keep him going.
One challenge Stanley had early in his career was working a little too hard. Taking meetings at odd hours so much so that “I lived and died by ASP for about five or six years,” said Stanley. If he could go back, he said, taking it a little less seriously would be the first step. Still, he doesn’t regret the experience.
“I’m a bit of a control freak,” he said. “That was a huge, huge outlet for that behavior.”
Zach Crump franchises DoodyCalls in Henderson Nevada.
Zach Crump, a 30-year-old franchisee of DoodyCalls in Henderson, Nevada, got his start in the business in March 2022. Hearing about the brand from his father, Crump recruited a few buddies in the Army National Guard and got started. As someone who already had a career, Crump was looking for a bit more freedom.
“This is my business; I’m making the majority of the decisions with it. I make my own schedule and being able to plan out my whole entire week without somebody planning it for me was one of the best options for me at the time,” said Crump.
Crump is also aware that his work isn’t for everyone, but is happy with his experience. Like the name suggests, DoodyCalls is a pet waste clean-up business. The overhead and supply costs are low compared to other cleaning businesses, he noted, and it’s not difficult work.
Authority Brands, he added, helped put him “on the path of success,” he added, from obtaining necessary certification to marketing and building a customer base, which was all unfamiliar territory. Having the resources behind him allowed Crump to learn while building and maintaining his network.