The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
Restaurant Technology Podcasters... Drawing from years of combined experience in restaurant technology, implementation, and marketing, The Restaurant Technology Guys are here to help you run your business better. Check them out www.restauranttechnologyguys.com
Jeremy literally grew up in the Restaurant Technology Industry. His family is the founders of Custom Business Solutions, Inc. and Jeremy’s early school vacations were spent soldering components for restaurant customers. Twenty-plus years later and Jeremy is COO for CBS, in charge of the implementation of technology systems for CBS customers. It’s fair to say that Jeremy is very much in touch with the challenges and issues facing restaurant operators in the area of technology systems. Outside of CBS, Jeremy and his wife Michelle are the busy parents of two boys and two girls. The family’s youngest son was adopted from Uganda. Four kids, youth sports, church and many other activities mean non-stop action at the Julian household. Jeremy is a big fan of baseball and soccer. When not cheering on the kids in sports Jeremy enjoys cooking and watching Food Network.
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
Revolutionizing Franchise Management with Erin Hooper from Franchise Systems AI
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, host Jeremy Julian speaks with Erin Hooper, head of Sales and Customer Success for Franchise Systems AI. They discuss the innovative end-to-end franchising system that Erin and her team have developed to streamline processes for franchisors and franchisees. Aaron shares insights about the platform's customizable marketing campaigns, sales applicant portals, project management for site selection, vendor integration, and ongoing location management. Jeremy highlights the uniqueness of Franchise Systems AI in consolidating multiple systems into one platform, addressing common pain points in franchising. This episode is packed with valuable information for anyone involved in franchising, offering a comprehensive look at how technology can enhance operational efficiency and overall success.
00:00 Franchise System
00:14 Introduction and Guest Introduction
01:55 Erin's Background in Hospitality and Franchising
02:58 Overview of Franchise Systems AI
04:40 Marketing and Sales Process for Franchises
05:53 Customizable Applicant Portal
13:00 Onboarding and Training for Franchisees
14:44 Site Selection and Vendor Integration
20:10 Challenges in Project Management
20:27 Integrating Vendors into the Platform
21:12 Ensuring Franchisee Compliance
22:29 Post-Opening Support for Franchisees
23:59 Operational Management Tools
24:37 Marketing and AI Integration
26:36 Audit and Training Systems
28:29 Sales and Labor Analysis
29:58 The Unique Value of Franchise Systems
32:07 Pepper Lunch as the Alpha Brand
35:40 Engaging with Franchise Systems
36:50 Final Thoughts and Surprises
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, helping you run your restaurant better. In today's episode, we are joined by Aaron Hooper. Aaron heads up the sales group for a new franchise system that came to market that, quite frankly, blew me away when she shared with me what they were doing. And so when she shared it, I said, I've gotta have you on the, on the podcast to share this with the world. And so I'm excited for our listeners to get to see and hear what her and the team have built. Really, it's an. End-to-end franchising system that can help you both inquire and onboard franchises and get them up and successful. While the majority of their experiences in restaurants, it would work for tons of different franchise systems that really need to have a consistent workflow. It's a great project management tool and it eliminates so many of the other tools that might need to. Be used in the world of franchising. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I am the Chief Revenue Officer for CBS North Star. We sell the North Star point of sale product for multi-units. Please check us out@cbsnorthstar.com and now onto the episode.
Jeremy Julian:Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us as I see each and every time. I know you guys have got lots of choices, so thanks for hanging out today. I am joined by a new friend of, the business, new friend of the podcast. I'm gonna let Erin introduce herself and then we can talk about what, outside of all of the other amazing things she does in life, which she gets to do professionally now. So Erin, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners?
Erin Hooper:Yeah. Hi. Thanks Jeremy for having me on. yeah. My name's Erin. I, head up se. And customer success for franchise systems ai. So a new end-to-end, franchise operating system.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. And I'm intrigued to get into that. But, tell me a little bit about your background. How did you even get into the business?'cause I think there's gonna be some people that are gonna recognize maybe the face, maybe the name, maybe some of the family history there as well,
Erin Hooper:yeah, no, there's definitely some connections here. but my background actually is mostly in hospitality, so I really started off, with hotels and resorts, working in Vail, Colorado, all the way out to California. a little stint in Miami and Florida. So I mostly oversaw catering and, sales of private. So luxury events at different properties. I was last with, Rosewood Miramar Beach out in Montecito. and, my father though has been in the franchise world since I was a kid, so I have grown up adjacent, and learning from him my whole life. restaurants and franchising. and then, yes, my husband is Troy Hooper, who I know you know, and has been on the show before too. and so I really came into, the world with him as I left my career in, hotels and hospitality to come and join the team with franchise systems. So he is part of the reason it got, started and I get to come in and now, be a face and help support.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. No, and I love it. And you, shared with me what you guys have been building, but at a high level, why don't you give our listeners just a preview as to what you guys are doing, and then we'll dig into why you guys felt like it was such a critical piece to help franchisees and franchisors to be successful in today's day and age.
Erin Hooper:Yeah, and I think a good way to talk about that initially is where we started, because this did start with, Troy and Pepper Lunch, when he got brought on in 2023 with them, they're looking to, really build everything from the ground up in North America. So Pepper lunch was. established, in over 17 countries, but, not in the US yet. And so this started from a need, so a need to, build a brand, a need to build a tech stack, and running up against issues that I think a lot of brands face, as you're trying to piece all of these things together and working with a ton of different product. and it went through a lot of iterations and Jonathan Whiteside, who's our founder, ended up coming, on the team, with Troy, and he was tasked with that to figure everything out, and was trying to find a solution that worked and there really wasn't a, solution. And he said, let me build it. So ended up building, franchise systems from the beginning. So what it, the overarching kind of concept is that it is a fully end to end. Operating system. So its intention is to give franchisors really complete ownership and oversight of their entire network, and really bring together all these different silos we end up working in, into one streamlined platform, so it allows for oversight and to be able to scale and grow.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. No, and I think it's a, I think it's pretty amazing.'cause again, you and I talked about the amount of systems that you guys are trying to consolidate is pretty significant. Yeah. I think it's no less than eight or nine different systems that current franchise businesses are typically starting with. So when don't we start at the beginning, because I know it really as a franchise or you're constantly out trying to sell new franchisees, you're trying to attract attention. Trying to get them to engage with the brand and figure out, from an onboarding perspective, who's out there who might be looking to bring on this brand. Is that kind of where you guys started with the product? And then, why don't we walk through why that might be different than some of the other things that are out there that might be out off the shelf, CRM or off the shelf marketing analytics or whatever else.
Erin Hooper:Yeah. So yeah, you're exactly right. So when the concept was created, we started chronologically.'cause where does it start? Obviously in the beginning, we need to be marketing our brand, so we need to get the name out there and. That can be slow, that can be very manual. So from a sales process and I can personally relate to that coming from sales of events as you're chasing down leads, it feels very manual and it's very reactive as opposed to being proactive. And so that is where it started. So from the beginning, our first sort of. Department, we refer to them as marketing. And so this is your prospects, your cold leads, any lists you get or, that you can upload. And you can create custom campaigns to encourage them to become, to buy into the sales process. And they end up becoming a lead in our system. And that's where we get into our sales department. And then your sales. Is A CRM, but it's more than that. What we've created with the sales department is an applicant portal, and what this does is allows brands to build this journey for applicants to be able to go through, to self-discover what the brand is all about. It's fully customizable, of course, so it's based on, how you wanna represent as a franchisor, how you wanna represent your brand to these different applicants. And what it does is allows you to. Self allows these leads to self qualify, and you're able to hone in and focus on the ones that are showing the most interest. and you can track everything. So you can see when they signed up, how many steps they've gone through already, and all of these different steps within the portal, can be videos or filling out information that you need. And so you can very quickly determine who's qualified lead, who's not, and it reduces a lot of this friction, this back and forth and chasing and not knowing where you are.
Jeremy Julian:and traditionally, Aaron, in that case, that would typically be a franchise advisor that would be taking that phone call and having to deal with one-on-one. They may be dealing with somebody that is interested, that but doesn't have the financial qualifications, might not have the geographic phone qualifications, might have zero restaurant experience or whatever those things are, and that typically is a human that would be doing that. I'm assuming, I don't know. tell me what are people typically doing? I think on the marketing side it's, it's some collateral, it's some emails, it's some text messages, those kind of things, which is great. It's awesome, get those things in there. So I think that's similar to what you might have from a Salesforce or from a, some of those, MailChimp or constant contact, those type of things. But when, once we get into the sales process, really, how is that historically done? Is it typically just like a checklist and somebody's manually, or emailing going back and forth? Is that typically how it's done?
Erin Hooper:Yeah. And you can see a lot where, you know, an initial kind of reach out to us for, for more information. And maybe you have a form, on your website that might ask for a little bit of criteria. but that's all you get right up front. And then it's sitting on in your lap. So ball's in your court, what are you gonna do with this? Are you gonna call them? Are you gonna email them? How much time are we spending? diving in deeper and like you said, jumping on that call. And what are your initial kind of. Qualifiers, is it previous experience? Is it multi-brand or, multi-unit? Is it, access to funds, so whatever that is. Yes. You usually have a sales team or an FSO or somebody who is manually coming out, following up with these leads and getting that information. whereas when you come into our applicant portal, those can be some of your initial questions. And as the sales representative, I'm now going in. And I can see my leads that came in that day, the info that they've already put into the system, and I can immediately see if they're qualified or not. So now it's either a quick email touch base, with your, thanks, but no thanks. Or it's still a phone call. It's however you choose to do business, but it just gives you the data more, efficiently and quickly so you can make those kinds of decisions.
Jeremy Julian:No, and I love that idea that you guys have built that. One of the first questions that I had when you were going through the product with me is how customizable is it? We've had many franchise brands on the show before, and some of them look for one thing and another looks for another thing. They sell franchises a different way. They, the Chick-fil-A model is very different than the Jack in the Box model First franchising, and again. Love both of'em. Both great brands, both do very successful in their markets, but they have a very different go to market strategy. And so help our listeners to understand how customizable is it to this specific brand versus let's just rubber stamp it. This is the way everybody should do franchising. learn from us. We're better than everybody else.
Erin Hooper:Yeah, exactly. every single brand I've talked to has, different qualifying factors, different motivations, different needs, different strategies for growth, and we can't be successful if we're a one stop shop or a one size. Fits all because one size never fits all. So it needs to be customizable. We need to be able to adapt and mode model to what it is that the individual brands want and need. from a customizable standpoint, we are going to do the initial, legwork. So we're not gonna hand you something empty and say, go ahead and build what you need. we're gonna get you 85% of the way there, and then everything is customizable. So however you want. This journey in the beginning to go. If it's just watching videos, if it's slider presentations forms, you can create as many different steps as you like. And it's very easy as the user to be able to go in and update that, because that's one of the other things that you know, Troy was experiencing in the beginning is if I'm. With, I have a brand or I have a, a SaaS product I'm using and I need to go in and make a change. It's gonna take me three months and, X number of dollars just to be able to update something that should be mine. So we really believe this data and this platform is yours as the brand, so you should be able to edit it. So everything's a no code build. You're able to go in, update your portal. You can change questions, add things, delete things, hide it so it all is very user friendly and completely customizable into how individual brands do their business.
Jeremy Julian:I love that. one other thing that you had shared with me that I think is magnificent about the product is the fact that it's not just let me pepper you with questions. You can also intersperse things about the brand. Hey, we're looking in this areas, this is why this such is value proposition. This is what we understand. Whether that's videos, whether that's presentation, whether that's Word documents that they read or any kind of collateral is that. Is are you finding that back and forth allows them to get ingratiated? Because they may self-select saying, you know what, this is not for me after I get through that process, is that some of the stuff that you guys are seeing.
Erin Hooper:Yeah, absolutely. we talk about this from a franchisor perspective, but it's also designed from a potential franchisees perspective. your first impressions are the most important, how fast are we? Getting back to people or talking to them, or how are we introducing our brand? That's essential. And so when you build it from a franchisee perspective, if it's just question, that doesn't feel like a relationship yet. So being able to mix and match this with, let me tell you what it is that we are trying to build here and why we're excited for you to be a part of it. It balances this give get. We're gonna give you a little bit about us, but of course we need to know some info too. So let's balance this experience and what it looks. Psych so it creates, a process that is, great for both sides. someone's really getting to understand and have their questions answered'cause potential franchisees are gonna have a lot of questions, so we can go through and really answer those as you go, but also get information from them in the meantime. It's a win-win on both sides.
Jeremy Julian:And I think from that perspective, the fact that it's even a systemized thing.'cause I've watched franchise coordinators make these phone calls and they ask one franchisee, potential franchisee, one set of questions, they make a whole bunch of assumptions and then they find out later it's not been working or they failed to launch or whatever those things might be. So the fact that you guys have got this system where it's iterative and it continues to learn and continues to go forward post this interaction of, I'm interested. So we've got the leads out there, we've got the. Marketing. Now I've gone through this process of, yes, I'm interested, I want to open a pepper lunch. I wanna open up a pepper lunch. And I know that there's one coming close to home. I'm pretty excited about it. text Troy the other day saying, Hey dude, when is this coming? I better get, friends and family opening for that.'cause it's close to the house. I know exactly where it's going now. but now I get past that. Again, most franchise systems or most of kind of the sales and marketing side might cut off there, but I know that's not really your guys' plan. So it's really takes you all the way through the rest of it. So what would the next module or the next kind of system be for franchisors as they start to launch?
Erin Hooper:Yeah. I think that's one of the things that we've seen and experienced too, is that when you have all these different platforms or different ways that you're using different products, you're moving people between one and the other. So you might have a pro, I'm using this product to target my prospects. I'm using this one to actually track as my CRM to track my leads. And then as soon as we get into onboarding, it's something else new. So that's what's different about franchise systems too, is that we brought this funnel all into one location. So the person in the data and all the info moves with them. So we've gone from prospect, we've gone to sales, a lead, and now they're going to become a franchisee. Now they move into their franchisee portal. And so they're able now to go through the same process they just did as an applicant, but now going through their onboarding, and then they're training and then into full, location management. So we go into project management, site selection. The whole nine all the way down through location launch and then monitoring your business from thereafter. So it really brings everything, when we say end to end, it's end to, we hope there is no end. You just keep going.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. Hopefully you keep growing and you keep doing that. And so we're, I guess as you guys go, and again, I've been doing this for more time gray hairs in my goatee. I've watched people fail from, they sign up all of these franchisees. I actually have a friend who bought a franchise three years ago, still has not been able to get a training and get a site up and running. and he is disappointed and he is frustrated and they have his money. And now it's tense because now it's, they won't, And so how does that typically happen, through franchise systems? take, walk me through that process because that is a hard part. Site selection's a big deal. Training, get, it is a big deal. Supply chain's a big deal. All of these things are big parts of things. And help me understand how do you guys build that out and help franchisors and franchisees? To get into a place where they can be successful is going back to that same idea of systems and processes that you've got, checklists, walk me through some of that, Aaron.
Erin Hooper:you're entirely right. I think that a lot of times your goal and focus is we need to self franchisees, self franchises, and then if you don't fulfill those promises or we stop right there and there's not a plan going forward, this ultimately isn't a path to success. Have to have good structure and good processes going forward. And what we've built and created is a system that's going to continue that experience for the franchisee and continue that oversight from the franchisor to see what's going on. So let's say you have someone that comes on board and they've done a 10 store deal. So the franchisees is going to convert into their app, into their portal, and now they have 10 different location. Projects that are automatically created. and these project templates, again, are customizable, as you mentioned, very flexible, but it's all customizable to what that process looks like for each brand. So it goes through and, there's going to be those normal steps everyone goes through in terms of site selection, vendor onboarding, ordering product, getting the stores ready, and all of that is built in to this integrated and really. Task oriented project management system. So instead of it being, Hey, here's a checklist, here's all the things you need to do on a piece of paper, what this does is really allows you to put task. orient or it, it does tasks that are specifically designed to, encourage movement. So this, if your first one is, Hey, I need to fill out this form, or if a task is going to be onboard with a vendor, it isn't just, Hey, let's onboard with this vendor and you put a check mark at the end. It's, this is your point of contact. Their calendar is integrated into the system, book a call, and now you're onboarding with your vendor in a more seamless way rather than here's the 19 different people you need to reach out to. Good luck. and as the projects go on, it can be if then, so if you've done this step, then you get to move to the next one. yeah. So it
Jeremy Julian:so even in that case, so let's take my friend who is trying to open up a franchise. He has struggled because he, whoever the guy is, the real estate person, it's a brand that does do drive through and they need a drive through. And it's a, it's a specific vertical concept. It's desserts, it's streets, it's, beverages, whatever. And so they can't be in certain areas where there's a beverage only concept. But they need the throughput, but they need the traffic. And so site selection is a big deal. They understand that, I mean for, if I were to ask anybody out there, site selection is probably the largest, area of opportunity for any of these brands as restaurants specifically, because you need the traffic in order to drive the business. And so in his case, had they been on franchise systems, what would have looked differently? He would've known, here's my guy, that's my real estate guy that I need to be working with. Is that kind of, again, I wanna try and paint the picture that says I have a. Current friend who's struggling with this and had that brand been using this, what would have looked different?
Erin Hooper:Yeah, so exactly any of the supporting team from the brand side is going to be into the platform as well. And so if part of those steps is this is who you need to work with on site selection, the platform is designed to really track all of this. however, individual, if there's individual, processes or ways that we're going through and determining, the best sites, that person is going to be directly integrated into the platform to be able to work directly with the franchisee. So they know, and there's a timeline built out. So if this is a, typically a two month project or a three month project, this is how long it's gonna take for your site selection. So you have some visibility into that too. This isn't an overnight, this isn't, something that we're gonna have a site that's already ready to go. This is a process, but we're gonna work with you on it. And you have resources to be able to continue that conversation. So it's not just radio silence.
Jeremy Julian:Love that. And as a vendor who sells into the franchise systems, I guess help me understand even as a vendor, why this would be so critical. Because I, I love the fact, and again, you and I talked about this, when we had our presentation of it, like we struggle because sometimes we're, we get forgotten about, we get forgotten about, we sell point of sale. Anybody that's listening to the call, this show for any length of time knows that we sell point of sale and we get the call that says. Hey, we forgot to tell you we're opening the store in two weeks. We need a system and we have a six week timeline, and now we're stuck and now we're robbing from Peter to pay Paul. Or they might have to wait. They're opening, and again, same thing. I've seen it happen with hoods and stoves and ovens and all of it. And so with that, does the vendor get to participate in this conversation? And if so, Say your FDD says you have to select this point of sale. Do they get to play a part in knowing both the franchisee knows, Hey, here's who you need to contact and the franchise or, and the supplier, partner, whoever that is. It could be your food supplier, it could be your HVAC supplier, whoever it is. Do they get to interact within this platform with those people?
Erin Hooper:Absolutely. Because you would, you would not be surprised, but there are so many
Jeremy Julian:no. I know. I've been living it my whole life and I'm only one portion of it, but I, we literally sent somebody, I think I told you this story. We sent somebody to a property, they forgot to order their front door. It was a glass swinging door, and they're like, Hey, we're ready to open. And we're like, dude, you have no lock on the door. And we shipped all of our equipment, so we laugh about it, but it's true. But somebody needed to decide, Hey. What was the etching that was gonna go on the glass that was gonna go on this door? And they didn't get the etching done. It was three weeks delayed and they delayed the opening, thus delaying revenue, creation for it. So sorry to interrupt you, but it happens every day.
Erin Hooper:every day, every time. And you would just, you would think that there would be something that's like, how did we get here? How did this happen? How did we not keep organized on top of that? But it's because there's so many different parts and pieces. Somebody probably needed to approve the design for the door. Someone that needed to approve the word, the vendor needed to get a quote back. you go back and forth and one thing gets missed and suddenly we don't have a front door. So it's an exact, it's a perfect example. So yes, the way that this is, that our project management is built out is to invite those vendors. That you're using into the platform. Now we have two ways about this. There is going to be, if there are certain brands that in their FDD, they require use of X, Y, and z different vendors, they will then be automatically built into, that this project that says, Hey, we need to onboard with your POS. Have your calendar synced in, you're able to book something with them and whatever the process then looks like. if there's materials that can actually be put into, franchise systems, we can do that. If you, there's a training video, if there's a step-by-step guide, if there's a form that has to be filled out before this vendor can really onboard you, we can design all of that within this project. So now you're going through and all of these steps are built in and you have those, okay, we can't move on to. to this next phase of opening until you've confirmed that we have a POS system or we have a front door, or we ordered silverware, like any kind of example. But this allows you not only to ensure that your franchisees are ordering from the right vendors, the right products. but it allows, the franchisor and whoever's overseeing this pro, this franchisee to be able to go in and make sure, so you're seeing this, it's not calling up and saying, Hey, how's it going? And you hear the, oh yeah, we're great. Everything's good. We're on track. And then lo and behold, you realize there's no pos.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah, that they ran down a Spartan final for napkins'cause they need to open tomorrow. And they didn't have
Erin Hooper:exactly. So you know, all of that.
Jeremy Julian:Been there, done that. seen it, seen the silverware thing, the plastic silverware that they had to go buy in the little packets that, it, it just, it happens because there's not systems like that out there. Is that
Erin Hooper:That is fair. And so what, it really is being able to bring all this together in a space that lets you, it guides you as the franchisee. So it's that support system too. And it's, and it's visibility like it's seeing what's coming next. So what do I need to start thinking about, but what do I need to think about? 12 months out versus what do I not really need to think about until three months? So you're prioritizing your time and you're making this more efficient. And this, you said earlier, this delayed opening that costs money, and that's exactly the opposite of what we're all in this business for,
Jeremy Julian:Yeah, absolutely. and again, just to recap, so you guys help with the onboarding, bringing them into the system, you help them get open, but I've seen a lot of franchise franchisees do all of those parts amazing, but then suck at managing the stores after they open. So talk me through how franchise systems can help with post. Go live post opening. How do we make sure that the stores are running efficiently, that they're taking care of guests, that we're getting guest feedback, that sales are where they need to be, that labor's where they need to be, that food scores are where they need to be, that reviews are where they need to be.'cause I know all of those, again, been doing this a really long time. I've watched lots of brands sell hundreds of units and then fail. I've watched lots of brands that pick the wrong locations and fail, not manage all, they manage the front side great, but then they suck at making sure that they're delivering the product in the way that they need to. So how does franchise systems help to ensure that Pepper Lunch is gonna be able to get to 2, 300, 4, 400 stores in the US and be successful? Because nothing hurts a brand worse than upset franchisees that aren't pouring into their brand'cause they're not making any money and they're not successful.
Erin Hooper:Yeah, we talked about that first hurdle of just getting the franchise sale, and that's where it can drop off. But here's your next drop off. We've now hit the finish line of our location launch. We're live and everyone takes a deep breath and is Cool. We made it. But this is really now just the start. I joke that we're end to end and not really an end because we don't want you to end. We want you to continue to be successful and what are the tools that you need to continue that as once you're open. And so this is where our operation side is now coming into full view. So in this, in the platform, you're now able to manage your full location. From everything and you get into granular details. So starting off with, hours of operation, you can update that from the platform out to everywhere your listings are. You're, we're integrated with the POS systems that you use, so you're able to quickly access, all of your data and reporting, say from your POS system. We're also going into SEO and reputation, so we can see what your feedback is, what your guests are saying. You're able to respond to your guests. In the system to be able to keep that relationship going and know where it is that you stand. and then it continues full marketing. So we have an entire marketing calendar that's built in so you can schedule out, if it's a month out, two months out, schedule out your posts. And as a franchisor, if you're having your franchisees do their individual marketing, this allows you. Still have that oversight. So I can still go in, see what the stores are posting, make sure it aligns, for the brand marketing and messaging and how you wanna be conveyed. but now you've scheduled all of your, monthly postings all within the platform, and you're able to, our AI really supports in this sense too, of, let's say you're. Putting out, marketing posts and something really takes off. Now the AI SMART sees this and says, Hey, this went really well. Let's do that again. Or Let's build off of this to continue this growth. And now you have smart marketing within the platform as well. But you keep going. There's even more. So you go in.
Jeremy Julian:I was gonna say we made it 25 minutes without talking about ai, so I'm proud of you for that. because all too often, especially on a tech show, I get to hear about ai about 30 seconds in, we got all of the ai and, as I, I talk to a lot of operators, they're like, I don't care about ai. I just want it to tell me what to do to make my business better. Which at the end of the day. What that AI for marketing is gonna do is gonna tell you these posts are resonating with your guests. Go post more of this, whether that's pictures of your food or whatever else. So what else is it that you guys are putting into the platform that you guys think are gonna help operators to, to operate better? Because really, again, at the, once we've got'em sold, once we've got'em opened, now it's, and again. We pay for secret shoppers. I personally go out to brands that we work with and I'll text the CEO. I'll text Troy and be like, dude, this sucked. Here's a picture of my food. This was bad. And again, it's not a, I'm not gonna go post it online, but I do that for friends in the industry, but people that hurts a brand quite a bit. So talk me through some of the other things that you guys are helping to make sure that people are successful with
Erin Hooper:Yeah, we'll come, I'll say that. And then really quick back on the AI piece.'cause I agree, I think it can be a real buzzword right now. And so it feels very much oh, it's AI this and AI that, we have a well established kind of AI support. That's very natural and ingrained in the platform. We can talk more about that later, but, but I agree with you on that front. but some of the other things like you mentioned, we go into, audits. So you're always gonna have, that monitoring and that's where you're talking about continued success. Let's make sure we're doing it right. Plates are, dishes are created the right way. in the beginning everything is SOPs and how we're doing this and everything is really by the book. And then that can fall off pretty quickly once you get into different habits or bad habits. And so keeping up with that. So not only do you have, say, training checklists, SOPs, your team is invited into the platform to have access to that. So even your line level staff can get an invite to come into the platform. Everything is role-based permissioning, so they do not need access to sales and FTDs and anything above, Side of what their purview is. But if they need opening checklists, closing checklists, training modules for refreshers, and, okay, I'll say another AI p that's in this, we're gonna have an AI search capability that if you come in and just say, Hey, what's the capacity of the fryer oil, again, it's going to search all of the data, the documents you have uploaded in the platform and can either tell you where to find that answer or just tell you what the answer is. So you're able to use it again in a smart way. But this gives a resource. For, from line level to you're still your store managers of access to assets that they need. you're also having audits. So you're doing audits of the store. you're able to have all of this take place through the platform. And then if there is something, say that fails in an audit, it's going to automatically create tasks that are then going to be assigned to the appropriate people. Can help rectify that. So if it's visibility, if it's a minor, maybe it doesn't need to go up to the franchisor level, but if it's a, important thing that's failed, anybody that needs to know will end up knowing about that. But then it doesn't just stop there and say, oh, you failed. It's going to put the steps in place of what we need to do to rectify this. What was the training that was missed? Was there a checklist that they were supposed to be using that they weren't? It's gonna figure that out and then let you know, here's what we need to do to not let this happen again.
Jeremy Julian:Got you a similar idea, Aaron, on, sales and labor, again, you guys have certain food cost metrics, you have certain labor metrics, by region obviously, but are you guys helping to say, Hey, sales are way down. Let's talk and call, and the franchise coordinator and those kind of things. Have you guys gotten to that point? Because again, there's things you can do to help drive top line sales to reduce costs when sales are down, they got bad weather. Utah and they got a snowstorm now, Hey, we gotta cut labor faster. We gotta make sure we don't have as much supply. What, whatever it might be. Are you guys helping at that point yet?
Erin Hooper:there's going to be, I think one of the most important things is when you're trying to analyze success or lack thereof. So if you're trying to look at something and say, Hey, we're not doing so well, why You need data? In order to do that, we need to know what it is. So when you're aggregating all of these different, points of information, you're able to then get a clearer picture as to what's going on. So you're able to see reviews and if there's, those are consistently providing a certain, messaging that's gonna give you more of a. Clear pathway, but because you can integrate everything from your sales, popular items, popular times, customer feedback, and then even your team level. So your team's invited in and you can have different chats or different areas for them to be able to communicate with each other. You now have a sense of your team morale too, so you're able to see all of these different things and now make more informed decisions and see what's. Going on or what we need to focus on or help improve. and that's one of the, the values and the power of having everything in one sort of dashboard to be able to see, and analyze and manage.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. I'm gonna pivot a little bit here. Aaron, we talked about this. What else out there does this other than 12 different systems? Because, I genuinely, and I say this, I get the privilege to sit at the forefront of a lot of pieces of technology. I've been in the industry for a really long time, and when I got a chance to see some of what Aaron and the team have been building, I went. There's gotta be something else out there that does this. And I then went on a late night, chat, GT search to go try and find some of this stuff. And there's not, there's portions that fix the fourth portion. There's portions that pick, fix the second portion. There's lots of different back office tools that are aggregated that fix the third portion, but I was not able to find it. Is that kind of why you guys ended up building it?
Erin Hooper:That's exactly why, and I will be honest, I had the same thought that went through my head.
Jeremy Julian:It's like there's gotta be something out there, right?
Erin Hooper:like, how is this makes too much sense. So what am I missing here? But that was exactly where it stemmed from, where we're trying to find something that solves the issues. You have individual products that do, that do some pieces of it, and you need to bring all these different things together. But the other thing that's very prominent right now is the SaaS fatigue. there's so many different products and costs can just. Add up and it's minuscule. But if you've got 19, pepper, lunch, use 19 different SaaS products, it adds up. And so coming from that and trying to find something like this, to your point, there really isn't there. There, there are some who are close, but just doesn't take it to the depth and the level that we've built. when we started this. It. we said this is what we need to do and honestly, ideas grow and we, if it started in one piece of it, I really just need a better CRM. But then it was like, what's the next step? So this is what Jonathan, his, how his mind works, he goes, what happens next? And what happens once the, it becomes a franchisee? And what about this and why is that all manual? Why are we using spreadsheets and why are we introducing people by email? Why don't we just bring it all into one? And so that's just where we said this is what it has to be. This needs to be everything because there's a need for it. and there isn't a solve. So let's be that solve.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah. No, and I think it's incredible. again, I'm gonna pivot one more time. You guys are eating your own dog food, as they say. So at PEPPER lunch, you know the brand that, that your husband and, dad work for are working at Pepper Lunch using the system. Is that, were you guys client number one? Did you guys build it for yourselves and then decide, Hey, we're gonna commercialize this? Is that kind of how the whole thing went about?
Erin Hooper:Yeah, exactly. It actually did really start with, Hey, this is just the solution that we need, and we're just gonna build it. And it was gonna be internal for pepper lunch. and then as it continued to grow, and this idea really became into fruition of it being a full end operating system, there was really this light bulb of Hey, other brands could really benefit from this too. Why don't we actually turn this into a complete product that can be available? and Pepper Lunch is the Alpha brand. So everything's tested through them. They've been on the platform for, almost 18 months now, and we run everything through them. and it just provides, it's. Built by franchisors for franchisors is how we like to say, because you said it earlier too, of we're not handing you a product and saying this is exactly what you need. it's going to fix everything when we don't know what the problems are. that can be a real challenge where you have somebody that develops and they think they're solving for issues that franchisors face, but they're not. So this came from real world experience, the real problems we were experiencing and feeling and built to solve those. So there's a lot of feedback that's put in, and we do have other brands. We have several other brands that are on as well as our beta testers who have, come on early and are providing us the feedback as well. And one of the things I am most proud of is that our team is incredibly flexible and open and responsive to feedback, because as you say, you build something and we think it works perfectly for the way that it's built, and you get some feedback and you're like, man, you're right. Let's do that. And so we can make those changes, we can make those updates, and we can flex. So if there's, ways or systems that you're just a brand's Hey, I have to use this is core into how I've built my entire, brand or strategy. let's talk about it. If we can integrate it, make it work. We, we wanna have those conversations as well. So we look at this as a partnership. we really wanna come in and help really do what we say we wanna do. We wanna help brands grow and scale in a way that is efficient, and gives them success. And so it doesn't, it, it only makes sense that we work together as a team on that to make sure that it's successful for each brand that joins with us.
Jeremy Julian:and I'm certain that some of the reverse feedback, you're talking to other franchise groups and they're going, oh, we should adopt this at PEPPER lunch'cause it'll make us better as a brand. I'm certain that's happening. The other thing that I guess, for those that are less familiar with the Pepper Lunch brand, as Aaron said, is. huge overseas and they've come into the US and are starting to take the US market, and growing quite rapidly. I know outside of Mark, there's also Paul Tran who has run a lot of other successful franchise brands in the past, so I'm sure that's a another, ace in your, ace up your sleeve that can help. hey, this is how it worked at Halal. This is how it worked at Roll'em Up, or any of the other brands that he's worked with. Is that, is that where some of that feedback comes from
Erin Hooper:Absolutely. And Paul's expertise, on the sales side, but we have him twofold. So he's on the franchise sales for Pepper lunch, but he's also a Pepper Lunch franchisee. So we're launching the operations side of this within the next month. and that's going to be a lot of that feedback straight from him is that you, you see this on both sides. You're experiencing it from, a sales and trying to market out and get. more franchisees to come on board, and you're an existing franchisee, so how is this working for you on that end as well? So it's wonderful that we're able to have that direct contact and connect to get really great, feedback as well.
Jeremy Julian:Yeah, and I think, some of my favorite interviews are those that are people that scratched their own itch of a problem that they had, and they said, you know what? We gotta go figure this thing out. And, there's probably some therapy session that we all need to sit through being restaurant people for our whole lives. But, so Aaron, how would people engage? what does that engagement look like? How do they learn more if they're out there and they're like, I want to be like them. I, after we talked, and I know you, I said this before I hit the record button. I have at least 10 brands and I'm like, oh my gosh. please just sign up for this thing.'cause it'll make life so much easier for me as a supplier partner outside of the fact that, for them it would just help organize their lives in so much of a better, and easier way.
Erin Hooper:Yeah. So great. Next steps. I love, I connect personally with everyone who's coming in to, explore the platform. We'll do a demo together while I'll be able to really show you how it works from the Pepper lunch side too. so our website is. Franchise systems.ai, or you can email me directly. I'm just aaron@franchisesystems.ai. and we'll get together and have a chat and I like to get to know whoever I'm talking with about what are the pain points that you feel, because I'm saying that we have a franchisor on our team who's providing the issues, but as we've talked about, every brand is different. So I need to hear specifically what it is that you're struggling with or what's been the thing that you feel like is keeping you from growth. And then let's talk about how franchise systems. Fixes that for you. we like the conversations to be personal and, let's get on a call, talk through all of that, and take it from there.
Jeremy Julian:Awesome. one last question that I'm gonna just, throw at you, and if you're not at a place to answer, what's been the biggest surprise that you've come up with? what's the biggest learning that the team has gotten getting into the software business and truly trying to put a stamp on the market and stamp on, on what it is that, that you guys can do to help make the world a better place?
Erin Hooper:That is a good question. I think that one of the things we, there's a balance between figuring out how you can solve multiple problems and also understanding that you're not. You're not going to be everything to everyone. We are never, we want our ideas to be big. Our platform, has become this full end-to-end system, but we're never gonna be a POS. Product, like product, that's not where we are. So it's this balance of let's solve for the things we know we can and we can do well, and let's partner with where we, where it doesn't make sense for us. and I think that's a good thing to have. So we're able to keep these relationships with other vendors, with other things that make a lot of sense and are having great success in the industry. we're not trying to be, absolutely everything, all in one. We're just gonna be, 90% of it.
Jeremy Julian:I love it. thank you for sharing, Aaron. Thank you for sharing the story. I love, since you shared more in depth and shared some screenshots and stuff, it's been, bouncing around in my head. So I'm glad that I got, got a chance to do the interview, get things out to our audience guys. Like I said at the onset, I know you guys got lots of choices, so thank you guys for hanging out with us this week. If you haven't already checked out, franchise Systems ai, please go do And lastly, if you haven't already subscribed to the show, please Give us a subscribe on any of your favorite platforms and make it a great day.
Erin Hooper:Thanks, Jeremy.
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