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Building Engagement and Alignment in Franchising with Leigh Feldman
5 Plays1 month ago
In this installment of MustardHub Voices: From the Frontlines, Julie sits down with Leigh Feldman, CEO of Youth Franchise Brands, to explore how people, culture, and soft skills shape success in franchising and youth-focused businesses.
Leigh shares his journey from franchisee to platform CEO and offers a candid look at the people challenges he sees across franchise systems—from miscommunication and misalignment to gaps in training and engagement. Drawing on real-world examples from education, hospitality, and franchising, he explains why soft skills, intentional communication, and simple frameworks can prevent many common “people problems” before they escalate.
This conversation covers role-playing as a training tool, meeting employees where they are, using technology to support learning, and why incremental improvement often beats sweeping change. Leigh also introduces practical concepts like defining a clear North Star and focusing on what truly matters, not just what’s easiest to measure. It’s a thoughtful, actionable discussion for operators and leaders building teams in people-driven businesses.
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Hi, all. Welcome to Mustard Hub Voices from the Front Lines. Here's where we talk with leaders who roll up their sleeves to support and engage their teams. Across all industries, from healthcare care to hospitality, retail, the trades, we dive into the real stories and real strategies from the people who make it happen every day.
00:00:24
Speaker
And today, my guest who makes it happen is Lee Feldman. Thank you so much for joining me today. Well, thank you for having me. It is really an honor to be on this show. The show is fantastic. I encourage any listeners that are listening for the first time now to certainly listen to other episodes and take advantage of all that is there.
00:00:42
Speaker
i I appreciate the endorsement because, you know, it's being relatively relatively fresh.
Guest Introduction: Lee Feldman and Youth Franchise Brands
00:00:47
Speaker
I think you are guest number three or four. So it's been... a But talk about the other shows that you do too. Oh, I know, I know, I know. So yeah, we do have Behind the Build, which is a very excellent one with ah our CEO, Mustard Hub CEO, Curtis Forbes, talking talking with folks. lot of great topics. That one is a little bit more established, but you know it is missing me. So, you know.
00:01:11
Speaker
Well, that is why the CEO. Thank you for letting me be on this and for letting me to get to a conversation with you. other is missing you and obviously important factor here. Appreciate you. Appreciate you So, you know, we've talked a little bit about me, about Mustard Hub, about our shows that I've been producing.
00:01:29
Speaker
You, tell me about you. You know, who are you? Where are you based? What do you do for fun? What is, what's your story? Oh, such large conversations. I wish I had better answers, but. My name is Lee Feldman. I am the current CEO of YFB, which is Youth Franchise Brands. We are a platform that invest in franchisors or businesses that operate in sort of the overlap of the youth, family, and corporate event adult spaces. We look for things that really focus on vocational programming, things that assist kids and adults, families, to really as to sort of prepare for the future.
Young Chefs Academy and Its Impact
00:02:04
Speaker
And so the businesses we'll be talking about today are Young Chefs Academy, and flour power cooking studios too, that really focus on kids cooking, kids baking, really knowing how to navigate the kitchen.
00:02:15
Speaker
Obviously until AI comes to take all jobs from all things, from all people, including children. that's That's a sad um future with even the kids losing their kitchen their kitchen jobs. Well, that's why you asked, what do you do for fun? I try not to think about those things.
00:02:32
Speaker
Sorry for for making us go all, you know, almost post-apocalyptic there. So um pretending that Skynet, you know, isn't coming for us, um we'll keep it going. So um how did you, I guess, how did you get into kids and cooking?
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, really originally from being a franchisee and working in the space. I mean, even before that, I guess, having been a teacher and wanting to be in education. My father's an educator. My mother was in social work and youth sort of enrichment activities of how to make children's lives better and then working in community development. So maybe the groundwork was laid before even joining franchise systems. But then going from franchisee to agency to franchisor, sort of working on the client side, to use that agency term, working at a platform, working at another group in the same way, and then being poached to come and lead this platform. As somebody that's gone through the brand building and platform building side, I was asked, you know, would you want to come and lead and build a team?
00:03:36
Speaker
of a platform of multiple brands and knowing that it worked in youth enrichment, youth educational spaces, youth vocation vocational programming, really having the ability to impact kids and families, it was an easy answer and an obvious yes. This is sort of the social entrepreneurship piece of doing good while doing well.
00:03:56
Speaker
And I think that's what we do in our communities is we do good while doing well by introducing kids how to be in a kitchen, how to navigate that kitchen, how to confidence in that kitchen, and then ultimately how to have self positive steam.
00:04:09
Speaker
So basically it's kind of like, it was like singing to you like the siren song. Yes, absolutely. I mean, knowing that you're impacting the self-esteem of children each day, there is no better thing.
00:04:20
Speaker
Again, obviously positively impact the self-esteem of children, but yes. Yeah, honor no that's, yeah, that's, I think a key, a key adjective there. um So I want to, I'm go try to remember to come back and talk about franchising for a little bit, um but tell me more about Young Chefs Academy.
00:04:40
Speaker
Like, so for for the folks who don't know, but It's a very cool concept. What is it? Yeah. It's about to celebrate its 22nd birthday. So for over two decades, it's been teaching kids how to work in a home kitchen and really, again, understand their home kitchen space so they could walk into it and go, I got this. Let me prepare some stuff. I know what to do. We have real certifications for kids that really kind of want to go deeper into the educational aspect of cooking and learning. Things related to Sharp Chef, knife certifications, cake top typing, piping, icing, all of the things on the decoration or pastry side.
00:05:18
Speaker
You have science of sauces and reductions, different protein levels. And so there's kids that really come and grasp this. They love it. They want to take the ball and run, you sort of a sports analogy? And This is their thing.
00:05:31
Speaker
This is that social aspect, the community aspect, the STEAM and STEM-based learning aspect, and the entrepreneurial side of budgeting, grocery shopping. And Young Chefs teaches all of those things. And again, some kids really run with it. We've actually had three kids go on to win MasterChef Junior because this is their activity after school and they love it.
00:05:52
Speaker
So these kids are are basically just ready to run circles around me in the kitchen. ah Me as well. My wife tells me that I still make the six things I made in college and I still don't make them that great. So these kids, they definitely are pros. There are some that I see and I go, I want you to be my at-home chef. You're incredible in your skill set.
00:06:12
Speaker
um And then there's some that, you know, again, it's just the social aspect. They want to be around their friends. They want something to do. Maybe it's seasonal. Maybe it's really hot outside. Maybe it's really cold outside. They want that predictability of every Tuesday, every Wednesday, every Thursday, whatever day it is, I go to that class at Young Chefs Academy.
Franchising Journey and Communication Challenges
00:06:30
Speaker
I love it. So I'm going to pivot to the the franchising question that I was trying to hang on to for dear life. How did you get started in franchising? to tell me but Tell me about that. Because I know with Mustard High, we work with a lot of folks in franchising brands, including folks in like the childcare and early education space. so I'm just curious about your franchising journey. Yeah, I wish it was a cooler, better answer where I actually had done like the vision tracking or the mapping or the personality fit.
00:07:00
Speaker
I knew somebody who had a pool in their home and by pool in their home, I mean like they had a swing and a balcony you could jump off of and like a hot tub. It basically looked like it would be in a Puff Daddy music video.
00:07:12
Speaker
And I asked, what does your dad do? And he told me his dad owned franchising businesses. And I said, that's what I want to invest in Again, I didn't ask like,
00:07:24
Speaker
Did he have family money? Did he inherit things? How did this pool came to be? i just asked, what are you doing at this time? And that sort of laid the groundwork of, I want to go into this path. um So I invested in some franchise locations as the franchisee. I then went on to work on the agency side for an agency that supported franchisees, a lot related to Google, map listings, claiming of maps, discovery, attribution traffic, acquisition campaigns, all of those.
00:07:52
Speaker
From there, I was recruited to be on the tech side, working internally for a large company. And from there, i was recruited to become the CMO of a franchisor, offering assistance for both corporate and franchisee locations. And then from there, I was promoted to CEO, went through an acquisition and changed, joined a larger platform.
00:08:11
Speaker
became the CMO of another franchise brand, then became the CEO of that brand as we joined a larger platform, and then now I'm the CEO of this platform. So again, I wish it had something to do really more with my personality, interest, vision, planning, all of these things,
00:08:27
Speaker
As far as a sense of discovery, because I love talking to people that are considering joining our group and asking them, how did we end up here? What made you interested in this? And it's always interesting to hear their answers because you do get some people to go, look, I'm interested in something that marries my passions, which are children and education and youth enrichment and food.
00:08:48
Speaker
And I didn't want to own a restaurant and I didn't want to own a math tutoring concept. And I found you. But I do talk to a lot of people that go, yeah, they just put a bunch of things in front of me and it was between this and, you know, doggy daycare and elderly care and maybe gutters and roofing.
00:09:06
Speaker
So I'm just excited to learn more. And that's my thing is if you're going to do something, at least do something you're passionate about. And so that's where I feel very fortunate to work in this space and work with people that are very passionate about what we do.
00:09:19
Speaker
Oh, that is ah that was is fantastic. um Quick follow-up question. Yeah. um As a franchisee, did you get a pool? ah No. I don't want to blame it on them, but I have four children. So, you know, I think they're preventing me from having a pool because I need to be a better parent. So, you know, I'm investing in the future. Maybe they'll have a pool and then I get swimmer.
00:09:42
Speaker
There you go. You're investing in the future pool. Yes, yes. The pool that I won't need to maintain. But if I did not have four kids, I think I'd have a little more money to maybe buy a pool.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, yes. With the swing, the water slide, the works. Okay, interesting. So um I guess I want to pivot a little bit um because you know we're here to really talk about people. um yeah People problems we see, issues, I think both for, going to say, kind of at all sides of the ah the coin, the beyond the two we'll pretend, or you know the die. I don't know. However many sides need to go on and run with it. The multi-sided piece.
00:10:21
Speaker
There we go. Thank you. I can tell we're we're recording this on a Monday, everyone. It's a Monday. um But, you know, I guess I'm curious, like, you know, as you're working, you know, with your experience as a franchise owner, with these various roles you've had now kind of as the CEO and seeing all of these different franchisees and what they're going through, i guess, you know, what kind of people problems do you see out there? What, you know, what maybe when it comes to personnel, um communications, alignment, et cetera.
00:10:52
Speaker
Where are people getting hung up in business today? I think it is always the soft skills and how people interrelate. Where maybe ai is a good thing and people are asking for a diagnostic sense of an email they received or a text they received because, you know, the message always sent isn't always the message received.
00:11:11
Speaker
Sometimes there are misreading, tone, language, when it came, what other things are going on in people's lives. So I think it is the soft skills, the ability to not just recognize that maybe we should take a moment and work through this together and talk about it together versus I'm assuming that this is happening or I'm using some of the history that I've gone through that makes me think this is what you mean or imply to really take a moment and stop.
00:11:38
Speaker
And we use the acronym STOP in our work very intentionally to stand for Situation Target Opportunity Proposal. Because we find that if there are sometimes disagreements or misunderstandings, we say, hey, let's stop.
00:11:53
Speaker
Let's make sure we're at least on the first piece of that acronym together. What do you believe is the situation? Well, they said this and I thought this. Well, wait, let's talk to them and find out what they believe the situation to be.
00:12:05
Speaker
Well, I expected this and this happened. And so once you can talk through the S and agree that the situation is the same and use those soft skills, maybe even as mediation or just mature adults talking, you then can move on to the T. What's the target? What are we hoping to accomplish with this? What are we trying to solve?
00:12:24
Speaker
What do we see as the o the opportunity? And then P, what is the proposal? Maybe there's different ways to approach this and they can agree on the best way or agree to try multiple ways. And again, that's where the soft skills come in of what are we hoping comes of this? What are we trying to solve? And what are we hoping is the end result?
00:12:42
Speaker
No, that's so that's so important. That's one of the things that have been coming up for me in a lot of these conversations that you know we've been having um both for these episodes, but also just you know in general is how important soft skills are. you know And it kind of really goes across the organization. It's not just the leadership that needs these soft skills. It's going all the way down to you know the team members.
00:13:03
Speaker
um I had a really interesting chat about, um particularly in the hospitality space, on food and beverage. And it was really interesting because you have a lot of hourly undefined workers, sometimes they lack these soft skills and it's not just impacting, of course, their work, but then of course the lack of soft skills impacts negatively their personal life, which then of course, if you're having issues in your personal life, oftentimes that comes with you back to work and just creates this huge,
00:13:31
Speaker
you know, spiral that, you know, if people just, if we would do better training and have frameworks like what you've just described for better developing the soft skills, how many people problems we could actually avoid by developing this in the same way we try to prep people for, you know, and the happiness level, yeah you know, creating an environment where people want to be, you know, if you think fast food, some people might say that's not something I would ever work. I would never have a fast food job as an older adult, maybe when I was younger, but not now.
00:14:03
Speaker
But you look at the happiness levels and quality levels, quality of life, quality of work, understanding of their service. Now it impacts the business at some fast food restaurants. I don't want to say the specific brands, but people are incredibly happy.
00:14:17
Speaker
And they're trained to say certain things at the end of each... interaction that you're going, wow, how is this group able to build this model of training and the expectation that each interaction will leave with this phrase versus some of these others where maybe people aren't as happy, maybe the customer service isn't so great. How do you build a system in place with people where you literally want to train and teach them?
00:14:43
Speaker
And so I just had that conversation with an an owner this past week who works for one of those brands. And we agreed that it's sort of like learning to drive a car. His daughter was 16 and he said, you know, yep, when we merge on the highway, we're working on, remember, to turning the blinker on first.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I realize there might be some people in some jobs where it's that initial step. But obviously, once you do the job for many moons in a long time, just like driving, you'll just naturally understand the spatial awareness, the personal awareness, the situational awareness,
00:15:17
Speaker
that, oh, I can drive and now I can look at the brake lights of cars, eight cars ahead, because that means I should probably slow down and begin reducing my speed. And just things become natural. But it's those parts of the training and having that pointed out to you that's the most important part.
00:15:32
Speaker
And so as a team, we really talk about beginning every day with we're with role play so you can work on your words and your wording, your responses, and how to redirect things when it comes to certain situations.
00:15:46
Speaker
I like that. And so, I mean, i think one of the ways too is role, I love role playing because especially if you're thinking of communication to make sure that information is flowing freely, that there's not, you know, that kind of, that kind of breakdown. It's so helpful about role playing, of course, not only for folks in customer facing roles, but also those internal conversations. Um,
00:16:08
Speaker
Just curious, and I would say this is not something I kind of prepped you for, but any tips or tricks about effective role play? Because I know sometimes it can be really hard for getting folks to dive in. Some people, you know, they get the the sillies or they just, they feel weird about it. Like how do you get people to engage in in role play effectively? yeah Any tips you'll have, I'll take.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think with most things, it's all about the person moderating or leading, you know, just like in an interview, is there a back and forth? Is it directive? Is it one-sided? Is it Socratic method where you can ask questions about what do you think? And so I think the person leading the session is sometimes the most valuable person, more so than the people being trained coming up with a silly character or asking questions, and how they teach to the group.
00:16:56
Speaker
Because the group may be audio learners, they might might be visual learners, they might be interactive learners. And so it's catering how you're doing the role play and the lessons that come from the actual engagement and activity more so than the role play itself.
00:17:13
Speaker
Let's talk about this and write down these things. Let's talk about that and read this case study related to it. Let's see a video on it. Let's see photos on it. Let's see it again visually.
00:17:24
Speaker
Some of those things on how the team might actually digest those pieces are going to be more important than the things themselves. So again, I think it's the person leading the session that's the most important when it comes to setting expectations, covering the recaps, and making sure people walk away with one piece at a minimum that they're going to take with them.
00:17:45
Speaker
There are additional things like Disney is very good about role play related back to Disney. Everything in the Disney world exists just for Disney. So if a child comes and goes, let me tell you about my football team.
00:17:56
Speaker
They go, oh, you sound like you're into feats of strength. Let's go over to the Sorcerer's Stone and Excalibur or these things or Beauty and the Beast where you can do archery games.
00:18:07
Speaker
Is that an expectation for everyone that works in a certain place? No, not necessarily. But again, can you work towards it? Yeah. But maybe you need to start with remembering to turn your blinker on as you merge onto the highway versus let's think about the brake lights that you see eight cars ahead.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah. No, I think that's a really good point. You know, really kind of looking at that, you you have to build on the training. You can't just, you know, start, you know, at a high level on day day one.
Technology and Training in Franchising
00:18:33
Speaker
um I'm curious about um technology, um especially when it comes to people.
00:18:40
Speaker
How are y'all using tech when it comes to whether it's human resources, training, really anything to do with people um in your organization, both that maybe at the corporate level or what you see your franchisees doing?
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah, we have some systems in place that are sort of Q&A agents, if you will, where our training materials are loaded in so people can ask for certain documents or reference lines, and those will pull that up.
00:19:04
Speaker
We have video trainings, PDFs, regular calls related to all of our operations and services. We have the ability for people to send in videos as well, to be watched, reviewed. We can provide feedback. But again, we really want to make sure we meet people at whatever level it is as far as a form of communication. If you're telling me you only need bite-sized clips, great, we want to provide that. If you're telling me I'd rather read through a document that's kept in a binder, great, we want to provide that. If you're telling me you want a full one-hour session recorded, maybe with notes or jump stops in between, great, we'll provide that.
00:19:40
Speaker
And that's the same of just the way we talk to any people. Is it better through text? Is it better through email? Is it better through call? do you want to have a formal meeting scheduled and it's set? Is it a five minute meeting? Is it a 15 meeting? All again from the goal of what are we trying to accomplish? What do we see as success at the end of this interaction?
00:19:58
Speaker
I think that's the same way when you're thinking of just in general, not only training, but how to engage your workforce overall. I think it's really, ah you know, it's so important to meet people where they are at because as you know, as I'm listening to what you what you're saying, it's true. It's like, you need to build on things. There's different modalities that people, ah latch into. There's different times, there's different needs, there's all sorts of different everything.
00:20:20
Speaker
And if you really want to engage your, engage your team, you know, you can't assume that they're this homogenous one size fits all. yeah. And the responses to it, especially when you're talking about gamification, do people pull back and move away because they're not enjoying it or they're not first? Does it create other relationship dynamic pieces that you now need to go over? So, you know, the level of review, is it group? Is it individual? how do you get the team to work as a team?
00:20:46
Speaker
All of that's really dependent upon the personalities. Curious in terms of, you know, kind of getting people engaged, getting folks involved, and of course, engagement that leads to also retention, because the engagement creates that happiness and, you know, this level nice, lovely ecosystem.
00:21:02
Speaker
Just kind of curious about, you know, maybe some the things that you've done or seen in your past that were really helpful to engage, to further engage the workforce that you were either overseeing or that um you saw the franchisees, yeah things that they were doing.
00:21:15
Speaker
We talk about one a day, one incremental improvement, one change, one takeaway, one thing of focus. We have an acronym internally for the brands on the food side that we use. And we talk about that as a review.
00:21:30
Speaker
in between our lessons at the end of the day, in between our classes before classes, and we start every day with role play. And it's just about making one improvement for each thing so that we can build on that. And again, not have to just remember to turn the blinker on as we merge.
00:21:45
Speaker
We can start thinking about some of the bigger things. um You know, it's a matter of how people will come to the end result. I know people talk about push, pull, or lead. They'll talk about if you can't change your people, change your people.
00:21:59
Speaker
i think there's a lot related to that. But if we can focus on one improvement with each lesson, each day, i think we're making progress. I like that. um You know, and I think that's one thing that it's really important, I think, for business leaders, especially newer business leaders, to remember Because it's so tempting when you see something that you're like, I want to see progress. I want to see change. I want to see people doing better to just want to do it all at once. And that just is not a recipe for success at all. That's just not how people people work.
00:22:32
Speaker
I think you also need to find out what is their focus? What is top of mind on their answer? You know, if you ask people, how's it going? They might respond, oh, it's fine. How are you? But if you ask them, no, how's it really going?
00:22:44
Speaker
Whatever they're going to talk about first is usually what's top of mind. So when I go and do site visits or audits or reviews and I meet with instructors, I always try to ask them, scale a one to 10, how do you think that went?
00:22:57
Speaker
Sometimes they'll push back and go, you tell me, you're here, what did you think? And I say, no, no, no, my number is not nearly as important as yours. Scale of one to 10, what would you rate that? And I'd ask you that at the end of this interview. Scale of one to 10, how do you think this interview went?
00:23:10
Speaker
So I'll ask them, scale of one to 10, how'd the class go? Most common answer is seven or eight. And I tell them, great, what would make it a 10? And that's the part that's most important because that's where you get into the sort of meat and potatoes of the matter. And they tell you, well, I wish I had done this or this child did that or a parent came in and did this. I wish I'd prevented this. I wish I'd done this. You say, great.
00:23:34
Speaker
And you say no more because you know that's now going to be top of mind for them and their area of focus. Obviously, if they told me, a scale of one to 10, how is class, and they go, oh, a two. It's a very different conversation.
00:23:46
Speaker
But the four, the six, the seven, the eight, it's not as important as the what would make it a 10. Because that lets me know that they are at least aware of the changes that they would like to see made.
00:23:57
Speaker
And now you, again, go through the stop framework of what is the situation? What's the target? What's the opportunity? What are we proposing? And how are we going to make those changes together? I like that. I'm curious that as you're having these conversations with folks for um the franchisees and other leadership in these organizations, what what is top when it comes to people, what is the most top of mind for them?
00:24:23
Speaker
ah In our groups, it's usually engagement. I would have brought more engagement here. i would have gotten this child involved more here. I would have talked to the parent at this aspect. You know, related to education and vocational programming, it's really about the engagement.
00:24:38
Speaker
Again, about what is the one piece I want them to take away as far as something they learned. You know, anyone with kids, and I have four of them, again, the pool preventers, this is what I'll now start calling them. You know, you pick them up from school and the most common question is, how was school today?
00:24:53
Speaker
Would you learn? And again, based on behavior, based on where they are in, with sort of hormones and development, you might get different answers, but it's usually nothing. it sucked, or oh, it was this, I did this.
Engaging Education Techniques
00:25:06
Speaker
And they might not remember all that they did. But at the end of the week, you might ask, what's one fun fact related to science you did? or you might be aware of what they're doing, and you might try to lead them to the answer with a sort of this or that.
00:25:20
Speaker
So for example, one of our classes this week at Young Chefs Academy is related to apples and apple cider and some of the things we're doing is fall drinks. A fun fact is the number of varieties of apples that exist in the world.
00:25:32
Speaker
There's 7,500. At the end of the class, I could ask, who remembers how many varieties of apples there are? You might get some blank faces that go, I don't remember, or i forget. Some kids that don't want to give the answer because they don't want to shout it out.
00:25:45
Speaker
So you can make it a this or that to sort of guide them to it. Who remembers how many apples there are? There's 7,500 or there are 52,637,917.444442.
00:25:59
Speaker
They'll know the answer and them hearing it from you will be another talking trigger to, again, digest and hopefully be able to regurgitate that later. And those are the reminder pieces when it comes to education that you want to continue to reinforce.
00:26:12
Speaker
I'm going to try to bank the ah number of types of apples to use that as a factoid. I am hopeful that you and anyone else that is listening will now remember that. Digest it and regurgitate it later on.
00:26:24
Speaker
I'm going to an event tonight. I think they're doing like some fall beverages. I'm just ready to roll that out. You know, there'll be something Apple based. It's like impossible to not have something Apple based in fall.
Advice for Aspiring Franchisees
00:26:36
Speaker
So, you know, as we're close to wrap up, I i know I prepped you cause I have like my closing question, but before I ask you for that big hot tip of advice, um I'm wondering like if someone wanted to get started in franchising, if someone wants to be a franchisee, either in your system or somewhere else,
00:26:55
Speaker
what ah What tip would you give them for getting started? Well, with talking to our system, I certainly suggest they reach out to me. Again, my name is Lee Feldman. It's L-E-I-G-H. And then, you know, assuming people are of a certain age, Feldman like Corey Feldman. If you don't know who that is, you should still reach out to me and then we can just talk about Corey Feldman.
00:27:14
Speaker
I am more than happy to talk about our brands, other brands, franchising as a whole. I love franchising. And I think there are some great aspects to it and some that I find rather silly.
00:27:24
Speaker
So I'm always happy to discuss that. If it comes to getting into the vertical, my suggestion is always the same for any vertical. Talk to the experts. Anytime I've thought about buying a car, I call mechanics and say, what cars should I avoid? What cars do you see the most?
00:27:41
Speaker
Call people that work as consultants in the franchising space. Call other franchise owners and say, hey, you work in this vertical. Home services versus fast casual dining food concepts, very different worlds.
00:27:54
Speaker
Ask them, what do you love? What do you hate? What do you wish you had known? What would you tell me as somebody thinking about getting into this space? So certainly talk to other experts, other owners, you know, see if they have a pool and see if it's something that you want to go down as far as a road when it comes to investment and owning your financial future.
00:28:13
Speaker
No, that's fantastic. And so if people do want to follow up with you, they can find you on LinkedIn, correct? Yep, absolutely. Again, L-E-I-G-H, Feldman like Corey. And then, you know, maybe one day people will say Feldman like Lee, the guy that spells it L-E-I-G-H.
00:28:26
Speaker
I love it. And talking about your pool um when they do. So I guess then the last thing that I want to leave us with is what is one final idea, a call to action, a hot tip,
00:28:40
Speaker
Really, any actionable idea that you want to leave people with when it comes to anything around people or or human resources or finding or training talent. What what is what is your parting thought? Well, obviously not don't be resentful if you don't have a pool, but my piece is always figure out what is your North star?
00:28:57
Speaker
What are you working towards? Whether that's an ah an exit, a flip, an investment, a long-term hold, figure out what it is and then work backward backwards from there.
00:29:08
Speaker
And the phrase that I always use use related to that is, is it important because it's measured or measured because it's important? There might be a lot of things that distract you from that North Star. Some might be vanity metrics.
00:29:19
Speaker
Some might be non-financial impacts. Some might be financial impacts. But working back from where do I want this to be? a year, a month, a day, 10 years from now, I think is the most valuable part, especially when it comes to business and probably relationships.
00:29:36
Speaker
I love that. And I love all of the, this was a great conversation. You gave lot of amazing information. Well, let me ask you, scale of one to 10, what would you rate it? You know, I, I'm going I want to say a 10, but I know that that's setting us up. That's setting me up for failure in the future. So you know, cause you always have to work harder. So I'm going to give this like a 9.8. All right. What would make it a 10?
00:30:00
Speaker
um Oh my gosh. That's a really good question. I think um the people not starting to jackhammer across the street as we wrapping things up, that probably would be. though That probably would get us the, ah you know, the last 0.02%. I could not hear it. This was a delightful conversation with no noise interruption on my side. And I really appreciate you letting me come on and having the opportunity to talk to you today and for me to learn as well.
00:30:26
Speaker
Thank you so much, Lee. Really appreciate you. And for all of you who joined us for From the Front Lines, thank you so much. Please make sure you like, comment, share, subscribe, all that kind of good stuff and go to mustardhub.com. to find out what we're all about and to get started for free.
00:30:44
Speaker
Until next time, see you then.