Dan Grosh Discusses Office Evolution

Adam: Welcome to the franchise consultant podcast. I’m so excited. I’m here with my friend Dan Grosh. So excited from caliber one partner. Welcome to the show, Dan.

Dan: Thank you for having me, Adam.

Adam: So Dan and I’ve known each other since last year. And I just wanted Dan to talk a little bit more about his journey in franchising in general, and entrepreneurship.

Dan: Great. So Adam, thank you again for having me. And my journey is a culmination of about 15,20 years of looking at potential franchises and opportunities to supplement what I’m doing today. So part of this is intrinsic to keep me motivated and second to do something for the community and I felt that office evolution was the right franchise that met all the right criteria for me.

Adam: That’s great. That’s great. And so you already have a job at caliber one. Could you talk about why some sort of business like office evolution was attractive for you?

Dan: Sure. So, it’s a complimentary business. So in a lot of ways, office evolution is serving entrepreneurs, which is the community that we serve a caliber one, so placing executives into, high tech companies. And so space will be located in Diablo Valley, which again, will serve the entrepreneur entrepreneurial community, which borders Silicon Valley. Again, there’s a lot of synergies between the two businesses where they’re not competing and they’re, again, very synergistic. So can house entrepreneurs building a business from an early stage and then potentially help them in the future build out their executive teams?

Adam: Great. And so What do you think is the benefit for someone that’s potentially looking at franchises to join a franchise organization as opposed to starting a business from scratch on their own?

Dan: Well, you know, I’ve started several businesses search businesses in the past, and there’s a tremendous amount of heavy lifting. And so the advantage that you get from a franchise is I’m especially in a business in which you’re, you’re new to that business, which, again, the CO working office space is something that we do utilize a caliber one. But I’ve never run that type of business. So by having all of the support necessary, makes it a little bit easier to do an owner absentee business. Because again, I’m in a full-time role today and to run a side business or a part-time business. It’s nice to be able to have not only the Support but the expertise at hand.

Adam: That’s great. And so I think there’s a misconception in franchising, Dan, where people think that they think McDonald’s and french fries, and they think that they need to be an owner-operator. I know that you haven’t opened your location yet, but from what you understand how many hours a week potentially is office evolution.

Dan: So I did a lot of due diligence on the business and spoke with several franchise owners at golf solution and a number of them like me are in full-time roles. And what they said is the average was anywhere from, you know, three to eight hours a week.

Adam: Wow. That’s great. How many employees?

How many employees? How many employees does the model Do you think you’ll have to hire for

Dan: One employee, which is called a business center manager that runs the center.

Adam: So one of the things that I’m finding switching gears here is I’m finding that a lot of the people that I’ve worked within the past and that are now franchisees are finding that franchise orgs are being very accommodating and making several concessions considering the current environment that we have. Could you talk a little bit about how they’ve been able to accommodate you?

Dan: Yeah, well, we’re in unprecedented times. And so now is not the right time to be with shelter in place in California to be touring office facilities where again, I’m going to go build my centers. So what office evolution has done is just extended the period to which I need to, to open a center so it was a year a grace period to open the center and now that that has been indefinitely expanded in terms of that timeline. So when we get back from shelter and places lifted, and I’m able to start touring facilities, then the clock will start ticking. So they’ve been incredibly accommodating and certainly understanding about what we’re going through today.

Adam: That’s great. That’s great. What advice do you have for anyone that’s potentially looking to start a franchise business? You did a lot of research when we spoke and in general, what would you tell people to do? And what advice if any, do you have for those folks?

Dan: Yeah, well, as a headhunter, I’m inquisitive. I asked a lot of questions, and I do due diligence and I dig and I would do I would advise the same thing is, one, do something that strikes a passion. And then second, you know, vigorously investigate it. You know, speak with other franchise owners within the business, you know, speak to consultants such as yourself in terms of getting feedback advice. Speak to other franchise owners in other franchise organizations. To learn what went well what the pitfalls were or what they had to overcome, etc. You know, I just felt like office evolution was home for me.

They the motto is ohana, which means family and it really when it just felt right when I made the visit to discovery day and all of my conversations and even the way that this came about in terms of securing the the the territory in San Ramon and Pleasanton just again, there was a lot of accommodations made by, you know, number of people as well as just the support that I had. And it just again, it felt like home after all the due diligence.

Adam: That’s great. Would you say that it was emotional, or was it more it sounds like it was an emotional decision for you, as well?

Dan: Oh, it was certainly both. So you know, one needed to make sure that the model works for You know, the owner absenteeism component of it was was critical. I mean, there are a lot of franchises that are not owner absentee, and that works for many where perhaps they’ve retired and they want to do something else, or they’ve got the time to do this commitment to do this. You know, I just don’t And so again, as being a full-time role, I was specifically looking for owner absentee and a b2b model versus a b2c. So nothing against food, it’s just something that I just didn’t want to do. And so, you know, I wanted to do something that that I know, which is business to business and, and so for me, there was, you know, an objective view on this in terms of taking a look at the numbers and making sure the numbers could work and the timeline could work and it fit for our family and schedule and everything that’s involved in terms of starting a side business. And then secondly, This was certainly emotional in terms of signing the agreement. You know, there were a couple of nights where my wife and I stayed up and said, Do we want to add, you know, the extra burden of a side business? Is this really what we want to do? And we concluded that, yes, it was this at this point for us.

Adam: That’s great. Congratulations.

Dan: Thank you.

Adam: So how do you see this thing playing out? You’re going to be the owner of office space, right? You’ll be starting it out sometime in 2021 or 2022. What? How do you see the landscape as being and how do you plan to take advantage of that?

Dan: Well, it’s fluid right now. Again, this is unprecedented times with COVID. At the same time, there have been some articles you know, in Forbes in other key top publications, Saying that co-working space could accelerate. There’s still a need for people to congregate. And yes, there may be some mechanisms that have to be input put in place for safety, maybe the congregation isn’t so much in a collective space, but there’s always going to be a need for offices and with folks moving out into the suburbs or potentially moving away from big cities. The model for office evolution fits in terms of serving that suburban need business owners that again need an office space. So I do feel that the market is going to be growing and had been pre-COVID. A significantly the market share for co-working spaces had grown exponentially, and I think we’ll continue to do so. So I’m just excited. To again, jump in and move, move the business forward. I think again, there was a huge need, for the service. And once you’re safely and soundly.

Adam: So look, you’re very successful a caliber one, what made you wake up one day and say, Hey, I’d love to have a side business?

Dan: Well, again, this was something that I’ve been thinking about for many years. And I looked at several franchise over franchises over the last 10 years. And, you know, I would say probably, least 10 to 20 that, and I never had gotten to a discovery day. This was the first one that again, get to this point in my process where I decided, yeah, I’m gonna make the jump and make the commitment go out, meet the team. This feels right. But it was something that I had always been thinking about. You know, the timing was right. stars were aligned. It was just it’s the right business at the right time. And I’m convinced them, you know, working with the right team to build a successful business.

Adam: So I’m going to switch gears again, you’re in the recruiting business, correct?

Dan: Yes. Executive Search.

Adam: The executive search of a very, very good pulse on what’s going on in the job market in general right now, I would presume.

Dan: Yeah. So it’s an interesting time. This feels a bit different than in 2009. Where in technology, everything stopped. That is not the case. So there are pockets of optimism. I don’t want to paint this as it’s, you know, the economy for tech is glowing, but there are again, pockets of optimism. So a couple of areas. One, there are certain segments of tech that are holding their own through COVID. A couple of those as an example or anything tied to us tech supply chain and fulfillment. We’ve seen some acceleration in FinTech, financial technology. We’ve certainly seen some acceleration in health, health IT, telemedicine, anything that that is again tied to a cure Life Sciences. We’ve seen an acceleration in e-commerce that is tied to anything that is a necessity. So, you know, certain software businesses and cloud and it and infrastructure security. We’ve also seen some acceleration and within certain functions, and so in many cases, the searches that we’ve taken on today our clients have come to us and said, there is a gap that we immediately need to fill. And yes, we’re in a downturn potential downturn and we know it But this is a gap that we cannot live without, we need an executive in that position. And we need, we need them to fill that gap now.

And so they retain us to go fill those roles.

Adam: That’s great. And so what advice if any of you have for someone that’s might have gotten laid off in technology, someone that might be towards the end of their career? I mean, what how do you see the outlook for someone like that person?

Dan: Well, differentiation is key. So as it is whether you’re in a good economy or a bad economy, and so there has to be a differentiate differentiating factor for you to know why somebody is going to be compelled to hire someone right now. What differentiation do they bring to the company that’s going to help make them money, save them money, make them a better company, enhance their culture? So, you know, some folks with a unique skill set and the Right Sector are going to be better positioned than others. But it isn’t It is a key is the value proposition and positioning and the way that, again, you’re marketing yourself and how you’re positioning oneself. And so there are several ways that somebody can differentiate again, I mentioned, you know, niche differentiation, certainly, you know, unique differentiation to the market and then low cost, not everybody’s going to want to be low-cost differentiator, but that is a factor right now. Certainly, you know, in today’s day and age,

Adam: Yes. Any specific sectors that you’re seeing a lot of layoffs in technology?

Dan: Yeah, certainly anything that that is tied to retail on his been hit pretty bad. Same with so retail non-essential. Travel has been hit very, very hard. You know, anything. Yeah. That is tied to travel and hospitality.

Adam: Yeah. Well, I always like for my guests to let our audience know how to get ahold of them. If someone wants to get ahold of you about office space or in general, how would they get ahold of you?

Dan: So they could get ahold of me at dan.grosh@officeevolution.com it’s g r o s h. My phone number is 415-722-2964.

Adam: Dan as always great chatting with you today and I wish you the best of success on the opening of your office evolution franchise.

Dan: Likewise, Adam, really appreciate it. Thank you again, stay safe.

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