All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
This is Veterans Radio.
Welcome to Veterans Radio.
I am Jim Fausone.
I'm the officer of the deck today.
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We want to welcome to VeteransRadio today Steve White, US Army Infantry Officer.
We're going to talk a little bit about that, but he's also had a long and successful career
in the franchise world.
So we want to talk about franchising and its value to veterans and some of his current
involvements.
Steve, welcome to VeteransRadio.
Thank you, Jim.
Thanks for inviting me today.
I always love to talk about my military experience, but even more so all the wonderful franchise
I've worked with along the way who were also military veterans.
Well, one of the things we were talking before we started, you are what's known as a UPER.
You may have to explain that to some people, but you went to Northern Michigan University
and an ROTC scholarship, and that's how you get yourself into the US Army.
So let's start with where did you grow up and what is a UPER?
Okay, that's great.
So Michigan has two peninsulas, the lower peninsula and the upper peninsula.
And the upper peninsula over the years was referred to as the UP, and then over the years
that got contracted down to UPER.
So if you're from the upper peninsula or UP, you're designated a UPER.
And oh, by the way, we also have a term for people born in the lower peninsula.
I knew where this was going.
Two peninsulas are connected by the Mackinaw Bridge, the mighty Mackinaw Bridge.
To us, UPERs, the people who live in the lower peninsula below the bridge, therefore refer
to them as trolls.
And I am a troll, so yeah.
I knew where that was going.
So Steve, you did ROTC to get yourself through school.
You got one of those really important degrees like political science major.
But the Army said you're ours for a while and you served six years, I believe it is,
1980 to 1986.
Tell us a little bit about your time in the Army.
It was pretty amazing actually because I, you know, the Army scholarship was my ticket
to school because my family is a wonderful family, but my parents couldn't afford a college
education back in the day.
And I got the scholarship from the Army, which enabled me to go to school at Northern Michigan
in my hometown.
And it was fantastic.
But it was kind of a goofball in college.
I mean, I had a lot of fun in college.
I worked hard at my studies, but you know, I knew where I was going when I graduated.
And so, you know, I had some lofty aspirations to be something like a military intelligence
officer or something.
And the Army branched me infantry.
And so I didn't know what that meant.
And off I go to Fort Benning, Georgia at the beginning of 1980.
I got commissioned my college graduation in December 79.
And I go off to Fort Benning, Georgia and lo and behold, the Army scraped an off crud
off of the outside of me to find a responsible adult inside that I didn't even know was here.
The family didn't recognize.
Yes, right.
And it went on to be, turns out I went on to be really good at it.
Who knew?
And so I loved, I loved what I did.
I love leading soldiers.
I love what I did for my country.
I would have, I would have done it probably.
My dad was in the Army National Guard in the Michigan Art National Guard.
And he was my hero.
And if I wouldn't have got the scholarship, I would have probably found some other way
to serve.
But it worked out great for me.
And I rose quickly, pretty quickly through the ranks.
I was promoted to first lieutenant and the captain, head of the curve back in the day.
And it was really, really good for me.
But I knew at the six year mark or so, as much as I loved it, as good as I was at it,
I knew that where I really wanted to do was business in my career.
And the head hunters had come calling early on back in my day, if you're, if you're a
good army officer, the head hunters would come all the way to Europe.
So I, you know, I spent over, over three years of my six years in service for spent in Germany.
So, you know, I went to initial training for bedding, then I went to Germany for third
armor division back to bedding, then off to Fort Carson, Colorado, fourth infantry division.
And that's where I finished.
And then while I was gone, my parents had moved to Ann Arbor and they were both working
at the University of Michigan.
And so I decided to come back.
And before I went with the big time head hunter, I'd take a look around.
And I mean, less than a, less than 30 days after I took off that camouflage uniform,
I had two offers, two opportunities, one in the University of Michigan hospital and one
across town at this company that was built in a headquarters called Domino's Pizza.
That's the one I took.
And that was 38 years ago.
I cannot believe it.
And it really has, it really sent the trajectory of your life because you've stayed in franchising
ever since at Domino's for a number of years and onto Allegra Network, which some folks
might know as Signs Now.
And now coming out of retirement, if you will, to Pure Clean.
But let's talk about the, the allure, the fit between franchising and veterans.
There's something there, isn't there?
There are 100% is, there are 100% is, and it's been my passion.
And you know, as, as a franchise company, we're part of the International Franchise
Association and they have a big initiative for veterans called Vet Fran.
And that's been my passion work for almost 20 years there.
But it is giving me a view, a broad view of franchising beyond the companies that I've
been in and I've been able to see how military veterans can plug it in.
And I would say this, when I came out of the army, having listened to the headhunters that
were trying to get me to leave the army and go into business, they told me about how my
skills would apply.
I get into franchising and my first boss said, none of the things that you learned in the
military will apply to business.
You're going to have to learn everything over from scratch.
You would have said the same thing if you were right out of college.
You would have said the same thing.
Nothing you learned in college is going to apply here.
And they were 100% wrong.
Everything I learned in the military applied to business, leadership, training, following
systems, you know, problem solving, accomplishing the mission, doing everything with a, with
a heart to serve.
All of those things applied in incredibly important ways to my business career.
And let me back up here too, because I made a joke about your undergraduate degree in
political science, but I did so because I read a quote from you in military, military.com
where you said, I knew almost nothing about business when I started.
And I think sometimes we get afraid to take the first step because go, well, I'm not an
expert like that guy over there.
Tell us about that transition.
Well, that transition for me was, was, was really good.
I think I had the benefit of a couple of things.
I read a, I read a couple of books back in the day about just about, um, there were some
guys who had written some marketing books based on military principles and it just flipped
all the switches for me.
But more so talking to these recruiters, they were trying to get me out.
They knew what they were talking about, right?
And so all of those skills that I learned applied really well.
And they, you know, especially to franchising more than normal business.
Why?
Because every franchise company is a system with a set of systems, right?
I don't care if you're making a McDonald's quarter pounder or if you are engaged in the,
in the science of, of helping somebody restore their home after it's been flooded like we
do at Pyrrhiclean, we all have systems to follow.
And one of the most important things you learn in the military is to follow a system.
We call it SOP, Standard Operating Procedures in the military, but it's a system and we
learn how to follow systems.
And so it's, it's every franchise is one.
The military veterans come into a franchise, they recognize the system, they follow the
system and the system takes us, takes them to great success.
Well, the other thing I think you learn particularly in the infantry and the army, but I think
I'll crust all the services.
You got to work it.
You got to work hard.
You got to work when you're tired.
You got to work every day.
You got to get up and, you know, maybe somebody's yelling at you to get up, but you got to
get up and move.
And to be a successful businessman in a franchise, that's part of the secret sauce, isn't it?
It absolutely is.
Most military veterans come with a really strong work ethic, right?
And Pyrrhiclean, my company is, we are owned by two investors, Mark Davis and Frank Tory,
and they're both like that.
Frank in particular talks about every day I get out of bed, first thing I do is kick
my own butt and get moving into life, right?
And Frank, well, Frank is actually the son of a military veteran.
His dad served in the Marine Corps in World War II in a famous unit called Carlson's
Raiders.
And so I think his dad instilled in that in him early on.
And it's, you got, you're right.
You got to do the work.
You get up every day.
You got to do the work.
I think that's true in anything.
And franchising, if you apply the work to a system, you get big success.
And many franchise, you mentioned Vet Fran, but many franchises, there's a cost to buy
in.
Explain to folks how you get involved in a franchise and what help might be available.
Yeah.
So for example, if somebody is interested in Pyrrhiclean, they can come to pyrhiclean.com
and that's our general website.
But if you're interested in it as a franchise business, you go to pyrhicleanfranchise.com
and there are all these great resources that talk to you about that.
We're really drilled on down into veterans as well.
So you can go to pyrovac.com, no spaces or anything like that.
And it's specifically structured for military veterans.
But it's about, you know, every franchise comes with an investment, right?
Because every franchise in the world, a lot of people don't know this.
Every franchise in the world is independently owned and operated business.
And I've got 465 pyroclean franchises today across the United States and Canada.
And they're all independently owned and operated businesses.
So it's a wonderful thing to investigate that opportunity.
And I think it's a really important thing because one of the things that we're trying
to do, Jim, is that as you look at service members leaving active duty service, the military
branches do things like interview skills and resume writing skills.
Those are skills to get a job.
They don't do anything to help you understand how you can own your own business.
If you come into something like pyrovac.com and look at it, it tells you how you can own
your own business and live anywhere you want.
You want to go back to your hometown, you want to stay where you left the military, whatever.
There's some franchise opportunity where you can own your own business, but yet still be
part of a major brand and part of a system.
And there's always a franchise fee.
And you know, you've got, in our case, you've got a buy a truck and equipment.
But we are already ranked as one of the most low-cost franchise opportunities somebody
can get into.
And then in addition to that, we're also ranked in the top 10 most military veteran-friendly
franchises in America.
Wow, that's great to hear.
And I should explain that PuroClean is a leader in property emergency services that's helping
families and businesses overcome setbacks caused by water, fire, mold, other, you know,
damage conditions.
So it's really a response and restore kind of rescue operation.
Tell us the type of person who gets drawn into this type of franchise, if you will,
Steve.
So, you know, Jim, I don't know if it is our business model attracts people with a big
heart or once you get into our business model, it conditions you to have a big heart.
But we're, I have the most amazing set of franchisees I've ever worked with in my long
career.
And I think it's they, it's not the nature of the work they do, because every single
day something bad happens to someone where they work or where they live, right?
Just as you just said, water, fire, mold, damage, whatever it is.
And PuroClean, you know, after the plumber turns off the busted pipe or out of the fire,
PuroClean's the next thing on scene to start putting life back together for those people.
So my franchisees, I tease them sometimes that they have Superman syndrome, not in terms
of invincibility or the ability to fly, but in terms of flying to the rescue of poor people
who just had something bad happen to them, it's what they do every day.
And it attracts these people with this big heart to serve.
And so one more reason why it's so good for military veterans is because we go from having
a heart to serve our country to having a heart to serve our local community, not in a way
with weapons, but in a way with tools to help people recover from something bad that's
happened to them.
And, and I think one of the things for PuroClean's part two is that every day is different, right?
Every emergency, every problem is different.
And there are some folks who like consistent routine.
If I want my domino pizza, I want it to be, taste exactly the same as the last one did.
But here, every day, every call is going to send me in a new direction.
And again, I think there are certain types of veterans who, that was the experience they
had and what gave them the adrenaline rush to get up and go every day.
Yeah, you know, at PuroClean, we don't want you as the business owner to be on the truck
for very long.
We get it if when you first starting the business and you're small and, you know, and, you know,
especially if you're coming in at a low investment cost and you've got the basics to get started
in business, that's awesome.
We've had lots of people coming at the basics and go on to create generational wealth for
their family.
But, but we don't want you behind that wheel of the truck for very long.
We want you to be the team leader.
We want to get you up over the top of that business and build a significant enterprise.
So you know, when I first came to this business in 2013, when I was first recruited to this
position, I was the company was the was much smaller because the franchisees were much
smaller.
And we've worked really hard during my tenure to and mark and Frank's ownership to grow
the individual franchisees we already have.
And they are now almost four times the size on an average basis that they were when I
entered the business.
And so we've had a lot of success with people starting hands on, but then lifting them up
to build a team and you know, our military veterans would be familiar with this.
Our philosophy is we'll help you to build the team and then let that team build your
business.
And it's really amazing when we get to that level and see them and how it changes their
life.
And as you've grown the size of these franchisees, give us some sense of how many employees
they might have, is this just a family business or something more and talk about territory.
I think that's something that veterans would be interested in understanding as well.
Well, in terms of size, the average franchisees probably get 10 or 20 employees.
That's the average one certainly have much bigger than average.
And so that's that's kind of a rough size.
You can go super huge.
You know, the beautiful thing about franchising is you do it to the level of your comfort.
You know, I have people, I have a franchisee last year that did over $20 million in sales.
He has a huge, huge team.
And I also have franchise owners who get in a comfort zone like less than a million dollars
a year and they don't want to grow a lot more than that.
Well, at the end of the day, I'm here to support them, right?
We're a servant leadership model and we're here to support them to accomplish their goals.
If they've got an amazing lifestyle at a million dollars a year in revenue and they're
super happy about that, then I kind of got to live with that and support that and be
happy with it.
So at the end of the day, it's got to be about helping these French as these accomplish their
goals for what they want to do.
And you know, we're here to serve, train, support, lead, empower them to get there.
Talk about territory a little bit because again, this is kind of a unique aspect of
franchising.
Every business actually has a service territory.
They may not know it is defined as such, but there really is.
There really is.
In restoration, property restoration, generally speaking, territories are defined by population
because you can go to the very detailed insurance databases for covered losses in previous years.
And it's all, everything's broken down by population.
And so we've looked at other metrics in the past, but the one that always rises up as
the number one is population and work.
So we settled on that years and years ago.
And when I came to the company, the company was granting a territory of 100,000 in population,
which is plenty to be successful.
That's probably high for the industry standard, but it's plenty to be successful.
I really felt strongly that the franchisees need a little bit more elbow room.
So we have, we've around those territories, we've wrapped what we call a halo, so we're
a buffer zone between where I can put in another franchise of an additional 150,000 people.
So they, instead of a market area of 100,000, they're start coming out the door with a market
area of like 250,000 in population.
And that's plenty of room to build a very large business.
And that's worked really, really well for us in our business.
Well, it gives you customer base, but it also gives you advertising coverage, which is one
of those things that franchising does for you that as an independent business is tough
to do.
But before we wrap this up, Steve, give, be a little reflective here as you think about
your long career in franchising and your career in the military.
Do you see that there's sort of a correlation if I hadn't done that initially, maybe I wouldn't
be where I am today?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Hard work, discipline, stick into it, focus on the mission, always with a heart to serve,
building teams.
I'm telling you so, so many of those things, Jim, that I got in the military, served me
so well today.
And I see how well they're serving our franchisees, right?
And we have a broad spectrum of military veterans.
I mean, I've got, I got a guy who's still active in the air guard as a crew chief on
C-130s.
All the way up to, I've got colonels, I've got a retired Brigadier General as one of
my franchise owners.
And so, you know, they are all an example every single day about how all those things
that we learned in the military apply so incredibly well to this pure clean business.
Well we'd certainly encourage those veterans who maybe have been out for a while looking
for something that, you know, maybe they're tired being the employee, they want to be
the employers.
Maybe they found out that they like something different every day to look at franchising
and look at pure clean.
Give us that website that they can go to, to drill down at your company.
You can come to pureovet.com or you can come to pureovet.com.
They both talked to you about the pure clean franchise opportunity, but the pureovet.com
really drills down a little bit more specifically for military veterans.
Well we're glad that former US Army infantry officer Steve White, affectionately a Uper
and CEO of Pure Clean, a COO and President I should say of Pure Clean, had some time
to talk to Veterans Radio today.
Steve we really appreciate it.
Jim thank you so much and as I find out I just want to say thank you and express my
gratitude to all my brothers and sisters who served and especially all my brothers and
sisters who serve currently today in Pure Clean.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fawcone.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach us at
800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio
shows by visiting us at veteransradio.org.
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And until next time, you are dismissed.
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And until next time, you are dismissed.