“The Transcript Is Auto Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors”
Tyler Jorgenson 0:01
You’re listening to biz ninja entrepreneur radio. This show was created for entrepreneurs, business owners, marketers and dreamers who want to learn from the experts of today and drastically shortcut their own success to build a business that supports their dream lifestyle. Since 2011, Tyler Jorgensen has been interviewing business thought leaders from around the world a serial entrepreneur himself. Tyler also shares his personal insights into what’s working in business today. Welcome to biz Ninja, entrepreneur radio.
Welcome out to biz ninja entrepreneur radio here on ABC News. I am your host, Tyler Jorgensen. And today I get a visit with a friend of mine, Marcus Mora who’s coming to us live and hot from San Clemente California. We’re going to talk about his business and his journey to Their current success. It’s gonna be a ton of fun. So please pay attention cuz I think Mark is gonna drop some bombs. Marcus, thanks for coming out.
Marcos Moura 1:08
Hey, thanks for having me. This is great. Thank you, Tyler.
Tyler Jorgenson 1:11
So right let’s start at the present you are currently running what business and what is unique about your business.
Marcos Moura 1:18
So I’m currently one of the co founders of a modest senior care, which is a homecare business. So we send caregivers to seniors homes to take care of things like dressing and bathing meal preparation, things like that. We don’t do anything medical. We just got to mention a lot of folks think that maybe we have facilities or communities we don’t. We do everything in the home to help the senior thrive. We started the business in 2007. And we started franchising the business in 2012. And today we have about 125 locations throughout the United States. And it’s been a lot of fun year last year we did about 97 million in gross revenues as a company. And it’s been it’s been an amazing business. We’re super proud of it.
Tyler Jorgenson 2:00
So that is amazing. And what I think is really great. It’s you guys have evolved, right? So you started in 2012 or 2007. It took you five years before you started franchising. When you guys first started, did you know hey, we’re going to be in the franchise game?
Marcos Moura 2:16
No. So what you will find for most franchises if you think of subway or any franchise, you can think about their big franchises. They usually start because somebody approached the founders and said, I really like your model. I want to own one of these, right? If it’s a Orange theory, somebody I want to own orange theory or I want it so the same thing happened to us. A good friend of ours. Robert Christiansen was a pharmaceutical rep at Pfizer, and he called us up and he said, Hey, I’m getting fired from Pfizer, and I never heard somebody be so excited to get fired. I want to get fired. I’m going to get a severance and I want to start an Amada senior care franchise here in Washington and we actually said sorry, we don’t franchise. In fact, my partner Chad You know what I’ll do. I’ll sit on the phone with you. And we’ll vet out other homecare franchises, and we’ll tell you which one you should start. And we started doing that. And Robert kept coming back going, you know, I don’t like these companies and we didn’t really like the companies that were out there either. So Robert flew out and he forced us into franchising. In fact, I don’t think we would be the company or today without Robert Christiansen, who was crazy, by the way, right? Early Adopter, whatever you want to call the guy. He started, he started this whole thing that was in in 2012. And then our second franchise partner was another friend of ours, Ken Jensen, who was in Colorado Springs had heard that we wanted to start a franchise and reached out to us and he became franchise partner number two. So in 2012, all of a sudden, we have two franchisees and that’s it right? And we’re still kind of going, the franchising thing might work, you know, but but it was still only two franchisees I think that’s usually all franchises start some some crazy person says, I want to do what you’re doing. Show me how and that becomes a franchise.
Tyler Jorgenson 4:07
Yeah, absolutely. Now we’re gonna come back more to a moto. We’re going to talk about what you guys are doing now what’s working in today’s economy, what current trends are, but let’s dial it back a little bit. So Mark is when did you first know that you were an entrepreneur?
Marcos Moura 4:22
I used to be a mortgage guy in Las Vegas, Nevada, and you probably know where this is going. Las Vegas, Nevada 2000 2005 or six. I was working for countrywide, countrywide home loans, and I had this this boss just named Jeff. And I had a buddy of mine that we were like, man, we should go be mortgage brokers, we should just switch and make the choice to start our own company. And so we did what every entrepreneur bread entrepreneur does is weed moonlighted. Right So we did a countrywide during the day and then on the side, we were doing our mortgage brokerage and in fact that company, we thought we were really clever. We call that company house, the home loan store. So the name of the company was house and it was a home loan store, which is kind of is a weird kind of a terrible name now, I think now but so we had these two businesses. And then I remember I remember my, the day that I quit my new business partner and I, his name was Fuli. Korean guy, great guy. I mean, one of the most amazing business partners I’ve ever had, by the way, we walked into the office together, and we would quit at the exact same time said, Hey, we’re both quitting. And Jeff is like, Hey, I know you guys are running a brokerage on the side. And I wish you guys luck. He was actually really cool. And so we quit. And we started and I think, even before that, I always struggled in corporate America. Corporate America was just difficult for me. I I still today struggle with kind of long meetings and just a lot of the structure of corporate. You know, like I I don’t believe that I shouldn’t be able to go talk to the brand new person. Or the CEO, right? I don’t know, it has been difficult for me. And so that was the last time I had kind of a quintessential job was around 2005. And when we quit, and we started our brokerage and then of course 2008 came around, and I lost everything. Yep.
Tyler Jorgenson 6:18
Yes. And I’ll tell you what the number of people that have been on my show that have a similar story is amazing. And number of people kind of in our, in our marketing and entrepreneur community that went through similar things is Yeah, so it’s, but you know, from every, like, major trial, right, we learn we refine our skills we and we grow stronger. neech would say, right, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, which is been popular right? later by in pop music. Now tell me though, about being a VP of operations for video game company.
Marcos Moura 6:52
Yeah, so I lose everything in 2008. Yeah, I’m in Las Vegas. And it was just my wife and I and I remember we drove away from Las Vegas with we had we I had a truck. And so we drive by Las Vegas we come back to California to move in with my in laws, super embarrassing. And actually I was my brother in law was a franchise or have a video game company. And and I started doing consulting for them. And this is playing trade video games it’s ancient video games was like was the anticipate how do you say it? And to decisis? Yes, to GameStop. So GameStop was like the big evil empire. I’m not sure is amazing company. But that’s how we saw them. And we were a smaller company of independently owned video game stores, right? So kids who come and play video games, buy video games, so I started doing consulting for them. And that led to me becoming a VP of operations for that company. But actually it was it was an amazing experience. I went from losing everything in the mortgage business to me getting into franchising, but then that company went away of blockbuster. Yeah, because we lost the battle to GameStop they just say It was very difficult to fight against GameStop. And so our stores started to underperform. And then as you know, you know, games are becoming downloadable now. So now today, even GameStop stock is failing now, because
Tyler Jorgenson 8:13
yeah, they’re closing the majority of their stores. So it’s just
Marcos Moura 8:16
right. So they just happened to stay on for 10 years longer than we were able to stay on. And so then we were in a turnaround situation where we had hundreds of stores throughout the United States. And it was really interesting to be part of a sinking ship, right? It’s actually a really interesting experience, because you see, such a vibrant organization go into a tailspin. And it’s funny, because it’s through that tailspin. I think that if there’s a way out, then it’s a very exciting thing to pull it through. But when you’re not, then I think the company’s emotional IQ and just your intelligence could just go down with the ship right and he’s make worse and worse and worse, worse decisions. But it’s actually a really amazing experience to be a part of that. To see what I did not want to ever do in a company again, right, what we ideally would never repeat again. So two failures, stats right next to each other Yeah, was from about 2008 to about 2012.
Tyler Jorgenson 9:16
So you brought up something that I think is really, really important. It’s one thing to go from failure to failure. That’s actually I see that as noble right progress, growth, resiliency, all of these positive attributes. But if you’re not learning from it, then there goes the positive side of of right now you’re just not moving forward. That’s not progress. So what were the major things you learned that you said? Now, you said, you don’t want to see that happen in your business ever again? What is something major that you learned from those two experiences?
Marcos Moura 9:47
I think so. Two major things that I learned that I’ll carry forever. I’ve been just transformative to me. One is that every startup needs to intimately understand who it is. They’re trying to serve and stick to that audience. And I think so many people struggle to do this, right, they talk about, you know, find a niche will make you rich. And I think that when people say that we think that we understand that, but it is such a quintessential thing that that I’ve learned through these last 10 years, really. And there’s a story behind that of how we launched a modest in your care as a franchise and how we, we focus on such a niche. And that’s been a really successful thing for us. And then the other thing is, the power that you have, when you have a company, we have a model, you have a business, you have a service they truly believe in and you have an amazing audience, how invigorating that can be. We go deeper into that, but I think those are the two things that the failure and then the successful most senior care have ever really taught me.
Tyler Jorgenson 10:49
So when you’re talking about niches and you say know who you’re trying to serve, I think most people think okay, that helps me know what I say yes to, but I think it’s equally important to know what you say No to like by saying no to anything that’s outside of that target. Like, because what I’ve seen in a lot of startups is they’re like, okay, we’re focused on this. Whoo. But there’s this opportunity. And then they shift and, and divided attention, right? I mean, the old adage of, like, you know, you can’t chase two rabbits, right? You can only pick one. And then a startup energy is so valuable if that’s what you have. That’s your main commodity is your beginning. So, you know, as you guys are growing a modest senior care, right, you hit like you said last year, you almost broke 100 million dollars of gross revenue. That’s right. When you decided you said, Okay, we have these two franchises. Now we’re going to let’s let’s go that direction, let’s become a franchise or what were some of the mistakes you learned then? And how what like that other people can apply into their business.
Marcos Moura 11:48
Yeah. So and I, I think your audience, Tyler, because of all the work you’ve done in the marketing community, there’s a lot of folks on here that have a high ticket item that they’d like to sell to somebody I don’t care if it’s, I don’t know, if you’re selling a high ticket item, I’m talking about anything over, you know, $30,000 you’re trying to sell to somebody, maybe a coaching program, timeshares, real estate, I don’t care what it is that you’re selling, right. But what’s interesting about a franchise is that basically a franchise is a coaching program. That’s a high ticket item, our franchise fee is $48,000. And then as just like a subway or a orangetheory, fitness or McDonald’s, the entrepreneur learns the system and pays royalties through the life of the agreement, right? So imagine having a coaching program where somebody pays you 4050 $60,000 to start, and then out of every dime they make, they’re gonna pay you 6% of that in royalties, so if they do $100,000 they’re gonna pay you $6,000 in royalties, right? I mean, perpetually. That’s what a franchise is.
Tyler Jorgenson 12:51
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s interesting. I’ve never thought of the franchise being similar to a coaching program, but a good one is right so a lot of people are coming to franchise because they’re looking for they say, I want to have my own business, I want to have my own thing, but I don’t know the systems, I don’t know the process. So I’m gonna hire a coach or or buy a franchise to do that. And the good franchise ORS provide that ongoing training and earn that continuing franchise feedback, the bad ones don’t and then they get into bad relationships.
Marcos Moura 13:20
That’s right. And it can be a very contentious thing, right? If the the franchisees are not successful, the franchisor also won’t be successful. Because even though you get that 40 or $50,000 franchise fee, Well, I think what most coaches and franchises don’t realize that that 40 to 50,000 when you really bring that in, that is mostly going to be your cost to train that franchisee. And what you got to remember is, if you have a training program, and you bring somebody in for $40,000, and you’re like wow, $40,000 and you’re going to spend it, what’s going to happen is you’re not going to have the resources to train that person, that person is not going to be successful. And that person then if they fail, now you’re not going to be able to sell more franchises, so you got to look at that 40,000 or 30,000, or 50,000, as absolute cost, right. And if you do look at it that way that your responsibility with that money is to take that money and deploy it to make that entrepreneur as successful as possible, you’re going to have the opportunity to bring in more entrepreneurs who are also going to pay you that initial fee. And I think the profit of this whole thing, and I believe this for coaching for anything that you do, the profit ought to be in that continuing education that you’re providing your community. Because again, you can’t look at that 4050 or $60,000 as your profit. You got to spend that back into your community. And I think that’s one thing that we learned with a modest senior care. I think as partners, we had the capital to be able to take that money and reinvest it. And I guess what made us I think successful is we really really cared if our two buddies, but they were friends about Yeah, we really cared if they were going to be successful when they play Call and it would say I don’t have money for payroll, or this isn’t working, or I have this issue. It was in America, the middle of the night, we would hop on a plane and fly out and make sure they were successful. It’s like there was no option. And I think that’s a such a big difference.
Tyler Jorgenson 15:17
Yeah, and I mean, I’ve seen some great franchises and I’ve seen some rough ones. Now a lot of people say, yeah, you know, the somebody who wants to buy into a franchise, they’re not an entrepreneur, they just want you know, they’re basically someone who wants to go from being employee to self employed, and you provide the entrepreneurial spirit or the at least the entrepreneurial framework, they got to bring some zest. Right? Right, disaster, right. What have you found are some commonalities around your more successful, you know, franchisees?
Marcos Moura 15:46
Yeah, so this, I think, is is so critical from our side. If you look at training programs, or coaching programs or franchises, there, some people say that, you know, we really are interviewing Who we accept into our coaching program? Yeah, you may have the $50,000. But I only let the right people in. When really in reality, a lot of programs that’s just baloney. The interview process is just something put in place to make you the buyer feel like you’re being vetted. The truth is, even if you have no business being in that business, they’re going to take your money. And then it’s up to you just become successful. That’s model number one. You have money, I have system, we make the exchange, I don’t care if you’re going to be successful or not. So that’s one model. Yep. The second model is one where you really do believe that your system your coaching your program, is ideal for a very specific type of person. And my opinion, what I’ve what I’ve seen over the years is I think those are the true models. The fact is, you’re not gonna be able to change everybody’s life. Your model isn’t that good, that anybody can be successful. So I think Any program out there that says anyone can do this? I don’t care. The background is anyone can be successful run from it, because I just I don’t think it’s true.
Tyler Jorgenson 17:10
So what’s fascinating, I’m going to use a lousy reference, but the old the movie Ratatouille, right? What the big lesson there was that the term anyone can cook was misunderstood. It didn’t mean that everyone can be a world class cook. It means the next world class cook could be from anyone. Right? So it means Yeah, but that doesn’t mean everybody it means it could be from somebody anyway, just it’s a miss. So I think that’s kind of what you’re saying. Like, you’re gonna open up the application you want to see you might be wrong in the initial in the initial application, but you have to filter and make sure, Hey, is this person actually a fit? And what do you do if they’re not?
Marcos Moura 17:48
I think that’s the science of figuring out who is actually the right fit, right? Right. So imagine this, if you accept anybody or if you have a wide range of people. You will Except the likelihood that this group of people is not going to be successful is much larger than if you narrow down who you allow into your program, your system, your franchise. Now, even when you narrow down, some people won’t be successful, by the way, and what I’ve learned is it’s not because they might be lazy are not because they won’t follow the program. It’s because life happens. You know, in your coaching program or in your franchise, somebody is going to buy your franchise pay you a ton of money in their life is going to change and they’re not going to be able to follow through. And I actually have a lot of love and affection for those people because I know what they’re going through. It’s you know, life happens. So I think when you narrow down exactly who it is that you can help a couple things gonna happen is one is a higher percentage of those people that paid you money are going to become successful. And also what I see so many times is people that are launched training programs or franchises, they end up hating their lives because they let everybody in and they hate the people they’re working with. Because they’re not the type of people that they want to be. associated with it didn’t want to hang out with. I gotta tell you, every one of our franchise partners today, if I had come to Southern California come visit with us, I would want to be with my kids and my wife and go hang out with them. We just had our fridges partner from Wisconsin was just here with his with his two daughters, Dr. Salerno and his daughters came out even during COVID like I gotta get out of here, I gotta get my daughter’s out. So they flew out. And they spent a week here in California, and we spent almost every day with them. This is one of our franchise partners. And so I think you’ve got to remember that it’s you can’t chase just the money, because that will make you miserable. I don’t care how much people are paying you for your knowledge for your system for what it is that you’re teaching them. You better every morning, be able to wake up and go, I am so excited to teach or coach or help these people. Because if you don’t feel that way, you’ll absolutely be miserable. Absolutely.
Tyler Jorgenson 19:53
I really liked how the general spirit of what you’re saying you’re right that if by being narrow in who you serve, You get to focus on the variables that you can control. There’s always going to be some things you can’t write the like you said, life happens. But when you have such a large range of people, like people at different levels of their career or their personal development, emotional development, the problems you’re trying to solve are so vast that you can’t serve them all well, but when you have a narrow niche, like what you’ve done, if one person has a problem, it’s probably something that other people are dealing with. So they’ll buy or buy something that once you solve it for 125 franchisees, right,
Marcos Moura 20:32
yeah, yeah, that’s right. And what it also did is, so as a group, let me go back to tell you that what we did, and this is when I talked about a niche, this is how deep we went. So there’s a pool of people that are who are looking at franchises, right? So somebody might call you and say, Hey, I’m interested in the modest senior care and I’m also interested in Jersey Mike’s and Camp Bow, as like you’re interested in a sandwich shop, Senior Care And dogs, like, Okay, so that’s the pool of people, right? And
Tyler Jorgenson 21:04
you can except that all three of their hobbies, man, it’s all three.
Marcos Moura 21:10
And it’s crazy because it’s like, okay, that’s very general, right? And so there’s that world of people. And then you could say, well, I could talk out of those people. Let me just select the people who are let me take them back, right? Take the people who are nice. And then from those who are nice, maybe I want to do let me just pick people who are over the age of 40. Right? So you can start going down that road and identify what we did is we went so much deeper. Our first franchise partner was a pharmaceutical rep with Pfizer pharmaceuticals, and he was about to get fired. And he starts in a monitor care franchise and becomes wildly successful. And we started we said, Wait a minute, what if we could find other people just like Robert, meaning male over the age of 40, pharmaceutical rep or medical device Rep. who works for Abbott, Pfizer, Merck Stryker, and if we could go after that them specifically and show them how successful they could be with our business. Would that work and this was back in 2012 2013. And the only way that we could target those people was through LinkedIn. And so we started to do a lot of LinkedIn marketing to pharmaceutical reps. And so over you think about this over since from 2012 till now, we’ve built a company that did $97 million last year in gross Billings. And the way that we really built it was we focused on serving one type of person, male over the age of 40, who works in medical sales. That’s always ever service. Now we have, obviously females, we have military we have people that have had joined our movement, because they were they gravitated towards the values and what we’re doing, but our outreach was always to a very one specific type of person.
Tyler Jorgenson 22:53
What’s interesting is your customer avatar found you right, in like, way after Yeah, yeah. It was Like, hey, by the way, I’m your perfect customer. And you know, so since I’m first Why don’t you go get more like me? Right?
Marcos Moura 23:07
We were very lucky that way.
Tyler Jorgenson 23:09
But you know what the same thing happens for someone else they might have their first customer may be horrible. And you’re like, hey, make a list of things of attributes you don’t ever want again, in your business, right? You kind of have to find it over time. Not everyone gets it the firt. Right, the very first time but, and I really liked that. I think what you mentioned too, like by having a narrow niche, sometimes you’ll have some people on the periphery where they they may hit nine out of 10. But because that they’re really strong on those nine, you’ll let them in and they’ll make sense, and they’ll still support your vision. Well, you guys have big goals. I’m sure you guys are hitting some kinds of impact right now with things going on with COVID-19. But what are your guys’s big goals for the rest of 2020 and into next year?
Marcos Moura 23:48
Yeah, so for 2020 we’re our projection is to be at about 120 million dollar company. I think we’ll be able to achieve that actually. COVID has been very interesting for us because think about the world. Is go home and stay home. And for our senior population, they need our services more than ever. So we’re actually thriving in this pandemic. And what’s happening is not only our franchise partners thriving, but also we’re getting even more interest from entrepreneurs, who potentially would have looked at Fitness or restaurant or other businesses that they’re shying away from. And so we’re getting a lot more interest in a mana which which has been amazing. And I’m super thankful for that right that when so many people are struggling right now with the economy, we’ve been blessed to be in a business that is essential and thriving. So that’s the goal there. And then our big goal is to have at least 200 locations that do $5 million in gross Billings, throughout the United States, which is actually if you think about a very small company, just 200 locations. We have some franchise out there competitors of ours, great companies that have 1000 locations. That’s not us. We want to be a small team dominate markets. And we’re excited to do that to create ourselves entrepreneurs and also help seniors Love it.
Tyler Jorgenson 25:00
All right now Marcus, I’m a big believer that entrepreneurship, business, all those kind of things. It’s not worth it if it’s not also creating the lifestyle you want. Yeah. Now, barring current travel restrictions, what is one major item on your personal bucket list you’re going to achieve in the next 12 months.
Marcos Moura 25:17
So one of them is I was doing pull ups pretty regularly and so you have the the pull up bar there, I was getting pretty really rarely but I crashed my mountain bike and I hear I hurt my wrist. And so I’ve lost all strength, like I can barely do a pull up again. So I need to go back to being able to do 30 pull ups. Nice. That’s my big goal. I want to be able to do 30 pull ups again, I can probably get up there and maybe I won’t do it now but I think I could probably do like three right now. Yeah, I shouldn’t right. No,
Tyler Jorgenson 25:46
no, no, yeah. No, we’ll do it off air and and then we’ll come back and we’ll do a follow up when you can do 30 but All right, guys, I want you to check out Amada senior care, follow Marcus Morrow find Him we will link him in show notes and help you find all the All the internet of things for where Marcus is, but really appreciate you coming out and all my businesses out there it is your turn to go out and do something.
Beau Crabill 26:10
Thank you for tuning in to business. Entrepreneur radio. What you didn’t hear was one more very important question that Tyler asks each guest if you want to be a fly on the wall when the real secrets are shared, go to biz ninja comm slash VIP and get your access today. Remember to subscribe so that you don’t miss any future episodes. And our one last favor. If this episode was meaningful to you, please share this podcast with a fellow entrepreneur so they can grow along with us is ninjas. It’s your turn to go out and do something
