“Leave It Better Than You Found It”: J.J. Sorrenti's Franchising Leadership Journey

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)

Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories Podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome adversity. As you listen today, let one idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Cotus Bodi, and today's guest broke into franchising by mailing handwritten letters to executives he found in a library directory.

Landing him at a vitamin retailer named GNC with just 25 franchise stores to its name. Years later, he left that same company for a year only to be called back to help it fight off Walmart. From there, his career moved through tanning salons, tutoring centers, and business printing before he took the helm of a senior care and home health franchise platform two days before COVID was declared a national emergency.

Building it from roughly 350 locations and three brands into more than 900 territories across five brands. His name is JJ Serenti. He's the CEO and board member of Best Life Brands, home to Comfort Care, Care Patrol, Blue Moon Estate Sales, Boost Home Health Care, and Next Day Access. He spent more than 35 years leading franchise companies.

Including CEO roles at Huntington Learning Centers and Hollywood TANS, and 11 years as president of Safeguard Business Systems, a division of Deluxe Corporation. But before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency. And you'll want to hear this because it's hurting almost every business you know. See, health insurance costs go up every single year, and businesses are furious about it. They're paying more.

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J.J. Sorrenti (02:43)

Hey Anthony, thanks. It's great to be here. It's a privilege to participate with you today. Thanks for having me.

Anthony Codispoti (02:48)

Absolutely.

So, JJ, you went to Shepherd University, you earned a business degree back in 1988. You took a job in the finance department at Kerry International. This is a franchise limousine company. And then after a couple of years, your wife's job brought you back to Pittsburgh, where you live now. Once you were back to find a job, you started writing letters to CFOs you found listed in, and we mentioned it in the intro, library directories.

Obviously this was before the internet is before indeed. But what made you think to go this route? Was this a common practice at the time?

J.J. Sorrenti (03:22)

It was. This is nineteen ninety and I can still see myself in that library with that big book writing down CFO names and addresses and sending resumes and letters out. I think I sent about fifty and I and I got two really good interviews out of it. One was with a law firm in Pittsburgh and one was was with GNC. And the the law firm moved a little faster and made me an offer.

And I called GNC and said, listen, I've got another offer, but I'd really like to come work with you guys. Is there any way you guys can pull together an offer or am I really still a candidate? And the CFO really liked me, thank goodness. And and said, Yeah, I'll find a way and and so I got to say no to the law firm and yes to GNC and it started a career in franchising that could never have predicted at that time what's happened with that.

Anthony Codispoti (04:13)

Why were you so

drawn to GNC in particular?

J.J. Sorrenti (04:16)

I'd I'd honestly I I like the people. The law firm thing kind of felt like it was very clicky, like everybody that worked there was either a lawyer or had worked in the law industry, if you will. GNC felt a little bit less structured it it was, less structured, and felt a little bit more kind of white whiteboard, like here we're gonna go build this franchising business and you'll be one of the first people here. That kind of interested me. I'm not really sure exactly why, but it did interest me.

Anthony Codispoti (04:43)

'Cause G and C was a name that nobody knew back then. Like we said twenty five

J.J. Sorrenti (04:47)

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (04:47)

stores at the time.

J.J. Sorrenti (04:48)

Well, twenty-five franchise stores. There were like nine hundred company owned stores at the time. and twenty and only Well,

Anthony Codispoti (04:53)

okay. So this was a a well known name. Okay.

J.J. Sorrenti (04:56)

kinda. it it it I would tell people I worked at GNC and they'd say, you sell trucks. I'd say, No, GNC. where can the new and this is right, th

Anthony Codispoti (05:04)

Night G C yeah.

J.J. Sorrenti (05:06)

this was in Pittsburgh in nineteen ninety, so GNC had been around at that point had been around fifty-five years, but it still wasn't, it was kind of that

weird little store in the corner of the mall where the bodybuilders went. and and that's what it was at the time. And so it was just making this vitalization, if you will, to use a different term, because the demographics of the baby boomers were coming into nutrition and and that's what really built the brand.

Anthony Codispoti (05:32)

Did you see that as you started at the company? Like that's where it was going or did that realization come later?

J.J. Sorrenti (05:36)

No question.

it it it came a little later. I was there maybe a year or two. GNC was a pretty solid business. I don't know stores, as I said. but they tried different things. They tried to get into grocery stores, they couldn't figure that out. They tried to get into kind of drug stores, that didn't work. But this franchising thing kind of worked because it was just an extension of what they were good at, which was running retail stores just through franchisees. so I was fortunate. We were

all these different new businesses that GNC was trying and this was the one that stuck. and so we we we and then as we started to see the demographic trend, we used to s talk about 3,000 stores by the year 2000. That was a combined with company owned and franchise. By the time we got to the year 2000 we had 4,000 stores. So like we under we under shot that. But

Anthony Codispoti (06:25)

Wow. Blew it out.

J.J. Sorrenti (06:27)

but bit but in the mid-90s that's what we were talking about. So the demographics certainly put the wind at our backs, no question about it.

Anthony Codispoti (06:34)

Interesting. So at the time were all the products G and C branded?

J.J. Sorrenti (06:38)

About 65 or 70 percent. GNC manufactured a lot of their products at a manufacturing facility in South Carolina. but they also manufactured for other retailers. So f at that time, 60 or 70 percent of all the vitamin E that was produced in the United States was produced at a GNC plant, not not necessarily just for GNC. And then about 65% or 70% of the GNC sales were in GNC products. and so you know it was a great competitive advantage.

And we didn't I think obviously the smarter people at the company knew what to do with it. I was just the franchising guy. and so they leveraged that and and pulled that off and and helped us grow and and it really, really built the business in a strong way.

Anthony Codispoti (07:20)

So how did you become the franchising guy? You had no background or experience in franchising. What do you think they saw in you?

J.J. Sorrenti (07:26)

Well, I did. so that Carrie International experience was two years and Carry International's still around. It's a it's a a worldwide franchised limousine business. And so I had those two years of experience out of college and that CFO at GNC saw that and saw that I had some franchising experience and he had five people downstairs in this new business called franchising. And he thought that I would be a really good finance guy to go down there and and work with them. and I say down there because we were on the fifth floor of the building and

executive team was up on the 13th floor. And so you know, thankfully he saw that experience in that background. And I'll be honest with you, I was there maybe three or four years and I remember telling my wife, like I I think I'm not sure I want to be here anymore, but I don't know where else to go in franchising. And she is like, franchising is not what you do. And I said, yeah, I think it kind of is. I think that's what I'm doing here. and so it, you know, it's it's stuck as a vocation, if you will, but that wasn't necessarily the intent when I got started.

Anthony Codispoti (08:23)

So what did they initially hire you for?

J.J. Sorrenti (08:25)

I was the finance guy. I was a controller for the franchising organization. There was a general manager. There was a couple of sales people in franchising. And there was a trainer. and I was the finance guy. and so I remember sitting at my desk, I was there maybe a week, and the Wall Street Journal came to my desk. I'm twenty let's see, I was twenty-five years old and the Wall Street Journal gets delivered to my desk and I called my wife and I said, I get the Wall Street Journal at this job. Like I get the and she said, You you're not qualified for this.

You might be in over your head here. but you know, it's funny how you measure things in certain ways. And I was blown away that I got a Wall Street Journal at my desk at twenty five.

Anthony Codispoti (09:04)

You had arrived. That was the sign.

J.J. Sorrenti (09:06)

I had. And

look, I was also because I was in this new business, because I was the head finance person in that new business, once a month I got to go with the general manager into the CEO's office and present our business to him. Here's how we're performing. And you know, that CEO is somebody that became a mentor to me. Just watching him operate and how he did what he did was just the greatest experience. He was by far the best CEO I've ever worked for.

I tell the CEOs I worked for after that that he was the best one. I learned so much from him. I was so fortunate to be part of his team and I got exposed to him at a very young age, which is a huge advantage to me.

Anthony Codispoti (09:44)

Can you pull out an example of something he taught you? Maybe there's even a story wrapped around.

J.J. Sorrenti (09:49)

Yeah, there's two things that I just was blown away. First, when I would go in there and say, Hey, this is what's happening in the Northeast region, I would watch him and quickly he would say, We need to call the manufacturing plant and do this. That was four levels away from what I was talking about. But instantly he went to how it was impacting the business over here and how we better be ready for it. And I was bl you know, twenty five years old, you kind of get blown away by how does he connect the dots that fast? But he was it was important for him and he was so smart.

and very well spoken. the other thing that I really got value from was I noticed that if you were as long as you're the right person, if your business was struggling, he'd put his arm around you and help you and try and find a way to figure out what the solutions were to make the business better. If you were killing it and really ramping, he would drive you as hard as he could. He would get on you and push you and drive because the you know the leverage was there and the sustainability was there and he had your chance.

So I it was always backwards to me 'cause it's like, you know, if he's supposed to be mad at that guy, he's underperforming, but he's putting his arm around you and helping you. Again, as long as you were the right person. but if you were killing it, he was not celebrating with you. He was pushing you to double down and triple down to try and find a way to make it even better. And I I like thought that was great.

Anthony Codispoti (11:02)

Interesting. And on the flip side, if you were the person

if you were the person who was struggling, if you were the right person, what does that mean? Just somebody who was willing to put in the effort but just didn't know what to do?

J.J. Sorrenti (11:12)

I think where he saw potential, where he saw, you know, hard work and it wasn't always about effort at that business either. It was about results. So if if you could get results in one area but were underperforming in another, so net net your business wasn't doing well, I think again he'd put his arm around you and and help you. And don't get me wrong, he was quick to help people move on to their next opportunity. but I I saw plenty of times where, you know, he just he would he would give you a hug or

help you work. I will also tell you I was in finance for three or four years. the general manager came to me and said, I'd like to move you over to the sales side of the business. And I actually went to the CEO, asked for time with him, and I went to him and said, Do you think I should do this for my career? Now I'm 30. And he said, Yeah, I think it'd be good for your career, but I'm going tell you right now, you can be a hero or you can be a GOAT. And back then GOAT didn't mean greatest of all time. Goat meant you could fail and get fired.

And I said, I'm not worried about being successful at this. I I know I can do it. Do you think it's good for my career? And he goes, Yeah, if if you think it's gonna be good for your career, you should do it. And so it was good advice, but he also told me right there on the spot, if you don't perform well, I'm not gonna protect you. No one's gonna protect you, you're gonna be out of here. and so I I did it and I did it for a couple of years and and it was good background for me as a finance person moving over.

Anthony Codispoti (12:36)

Yeah, fascinating. so you guys do make this transition from the bodybuilder joint to now you got the aging baby boomers, they're looking for supplements. This is becoming more mainstream. You're signing up lots of new franchisees, you guys are growing like wildfire. And in the middle of that growth, GNC is bought by private equity firm, Thomas H. Lee Company. This is in ninety five. This is the same firm that had just taken Snapple public.

what was it like to keep growing the franchise business while the ownership was shifting underneath you?

J.J. Sorrenti (13:14)

Yeah, it I didn't even recognize we didn't recognize it. I think it gave some stability to the business. I was always afraid and like businesses run businesses this way, but I can recall sitting in again because I was at a finance senior level, we'd we'd sit in finance meetings and I would see that we had two million dollars in the bank and five million dollars in checks outstanding. Like, wow, how how's that gonna work? Like if all those checks show up at the bank, we don't have enough money in the bank.

that's scary, but businesses run the business that way. That that's you know, the float. But that was scary to a young guy who had just didn't really understand how businesses work and operate. But then when PE came along, you know, there was capital available and we were able to double down. A lot of our growth in franchising came from financing franchisees. so the franchisees needed fifty thousand dollars in cash for their hundred and fifty thousand dollar investment.

that still sounds like a lot of money to a lot of people, but there are a lot of people in the world that have fifty thousand dollars available to start a business. And that's surprised me too, but they're route there. And so because we had the backing of of, you know, capitalization from the PE firm, that allowed us to double down and help franchising grow. So that was in some ways it was a benefit. In other ways it's hard because they want you to do it with slim resources. But that's also a benefit to franchising because all the head count happens

at the franchisee level, not at the corporate level. And so usually private equity likes franchising for one of those that's one of the big reasons they like it.

Anthony Codispoti (14:44)

So this the financing that you guys introduced, which helped to fuel a lot of this growth, was this a a product internal to the company or were you partnering with a

J.J. Sorrenti (14:52)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (14:52)

bank to do this?

J.J. Sorrenti (14:53)

Nope, we did our own. we financed it on our own. So, and and I know this is gonna sound crazy, but a lot of successful franchisees did this. It was, it was $50,000 down, $100,000 note, roughly, depending on how much it costs to build your store and the inventory that you needed. It was a $13 and three quarters percent interest. The interest rate was 13 and three quarters fixed, and a five year note. And we were able to make a lot, a lot of franchisees are very, very successful doing it.

and so yeah, that was all internal and and never sold it off, just just just kept getting repaid by the franchisees. It was it was a really good program.

Anthony Codispoti (15:30)

And

so is it private equities bringing in their own cash pool to make these loans? Like how does the actual behind the scenes mechanism?

J.J. Sorrenti (15:37)

Well, again, so if you think about it in three chunks, let's call the franchise fee fifty thousand was a little less than that. To build the store was around fifty thousand and the inventory was around fifty thousand. Okay, well, most of that inventory was produced by GNC. So you got that at cost. So really the investment that the company was making was much lower than fifty thousand in that. We had some profit built in there. And so really the outlay of cash was technically to obviously produce some of that inventory, but really to build the store.

And and we needed to be able to do that. But now we had someone run the store for us, didn't have to worry about the the headcount problem and and labor. And we were able to do it much faster with they gave us fifty thousand dollars to start, don't forget that initial franchise fee. so we did get that cash. So there wasn't really a lot of cash out of pocket, if you want to think about it from that realm. And again, the good news was the franchisees could be successful at it. I learned a very valuable lesson though, and

My wife taught me many valuable lessons in all our years of marriage, but this is a really valuable one. Many people came to me and would ask me all the time, like, you guys are opening three hundred stores, three hundred and fifty stores. you must be doing great. How many people have failed doing this? And I would say, only five last year. We we had only five. And so she came to me one time when she heard me answer that and said, Why do you say only? And I said, it's to emphasize, like, that's a really small number. And she said,

Yeah, don't say only. Because the number's small and it's impressive. But when you say only, it minimizes those five people is the worst day of their lives. Like they've worst they failed. And when you say only, it it diminishes what happened to them. Don't say that anymore. You can say five, but don't say only five. And it's like, that was so smart. and she heard me do it. So I, you know, to this day, you worry about every franchisee that doesn't that's not successful.

But you certainly don't diminish what they went through because it's super bad. No yeah. No doubt.

Anthony Codispoti (17:35)

Your wife's got a good heart, it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. Good taste too, then. Yeah.

So as you guys are growing these franchises, was there a potential threat, something you were worried about? Like something that was gonna potentially interrupt the growth?

J.J. Sorrenti (17:55)

Yeah, well, competition was always a little bit worrisome. and then I was gone from the company from nineteen ninety-nine to two thousand and that was at about the time Walmart started to started to sell vitamins in an aggressive way. And once they started doing that, you know, it created sort of this generic opportunity for vitamins. Vitamin C became vitamin C. You could buy it at Walmart much less expensive than you could at GNC. That was that was a big impact to the business.

And so that was a th I don't I don't think necessarily say that the company saw that coming. They may have seen it in the executive suite. I wasn't quite there yet. but it it happened and and it put a pretty big impact on the business for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (18:39)

And that's when they asked you to come back?

J.J. Sorrenti (18:41)

Yeah, so I was gone in ninety nine. I left because I was stuck. I I had reported to the same guy. I I mentioned I came out of sales. I did it for two years. I came out of sales and went back into management. And so I reported to this new guy who said, You're you're not a sales guy. We're gonna put you over here. and so I did that for four or five years, and I was kind of stuck under him. He was gonna lead, continue to lead franchising. I learned a lot of franchising from him. in fact, most of what I know about franchising I learned from him.

But I was underneath him, he was going anywhere. I wasn't gonna get promoted to run the business. So I left. and I was gone for a year. When I when I was gone, the new CEO who had become CEO in the company, we kind of grew up in the company together. and then he became CEO. I was gone. He he asked me to come back, one because the company was dealing with a lot of competition, but two because we had some issues with franchisees because of that competition, and he knew I was a relationship person.

And so I did go back, I was went back in essence to the same role I was in, but with a better title. I became a vice president at that point. and it was very surreal to be back there because I had gone and I thought I was gone forever and now I was back again. and so I did that, and then after a couple of years I got promoted. The guy that I was underneath finally decided to move on. And so I did get promoted into his role and I I ran the franchising business for for three or four years after that. And by the way,

kind of navigated because I had the ear of the CEO, navigated all those difficult times we had with those franchisees. We made some changes to the business that were necessary. and the we positioned it to the franchisees as things that they wanted and they did and they needed. And so with the ear of the CEO and the support of the company, we were able to navigate all those issues with the franchisees when I came back and that was a huge a huge win for the company in total.

Anthony Codispoti (20:34)

Tell me about some of the changes that you're making. I mean, it's hard to compete with Walmart, right? Because I, you know, I was in sort of a related space years ago myself. And the thing with supplements is unless it's like some proprietary blend, people view vitamins as a commodity, right? it's vitamin C. Vitamin C is vitamin C. I'm just going to get the cheapest one. So

J.J. Sorrenti (20:55)

No doubt.

Anthony Codispoti (20:56)

you and you're not going to win that game against Walmart. So

what did you guys do?

J.J. Sorrenti (20:59)

Yeah, so so

so the company decided to start to use special formulations that would make vitamin C more more effective for you and your body, more bioavailable. There's a product called Ester C, which was pretty unique. It's more common now, but this is nineteen ninety-nine, two thousand, twenty-five years ago. Not a lot of people are selling ester C as a form of vitamin C, which makes it more absorbable and gives you more impact and from a bioavailability perspective.

and so it was things like that where they would take a product and calcium instead of selling just regular old calcium ascorbate, there was calcium citrate malate. and so those two ideas, those are very basic products, calcium and vitamin C, where you could sell those for 99 cents generally, but with Ester C you'd sell that for 999 or 1499. Calcium citrate malate you would sell for a little bit more as well, better margins, higher price, and now you're positioning GNC as

the expert again. Yeah, okay, you want to stake vitamins, go ahead. But if you want to come over here and then you're going to deal with with the expert. And the other thing GNC leveraged was their expertise in manufacturing. we had we had some really smart senior leaders who then started talking about putting every ingredient that's in that pill on the label. Not required by law, not required by the FDA, but that's what GNC decided to do.

And so you market that as well. Like you you don't even know what you're taking over here. Yeah, it says they have this ingredient, but I don't know what else you have. If you take a GNC product, everything that's in there is on that label. And so those those positionings were good. Those weren't necessarily what we did to solve the franchisee issues. That helped. but there were some other relationship things we had, some marketing things we needed to do, the ways the franchise agreements were structured. We fixed those things too at the same time because they were all just time to revisit the business.

And all those things together revitalized the franchising business again and just kept on connec ke kept on continuing to grow, not only domestically, but then those five years from two thousand to two thousand five, there was a lot of international growth too.

Anthony Codispoti (23:06)

So this is really interesting. So you you recognize what's going on with Walmart. You don't decide to play the the low price game because you're gonna lose in that war. You come up with these specialty formulations, things are more bioavailable, they're better absorption rates. It's just you you you do the premium product. so I get all that and it's brilliant. certainly, you know, worked out really well.

Give me an example of one of the things on the relationship side with the franchisees that you fix. I mean, you mentioned sort of like high level like marketing and like revisiting the agreements. Can you tease one of those out and and

go into a little more

J.J. Sorrenti (23:40)

Yeah, one

Anthony Codispoti (23:41)

detail?

J.J. Sorrenti (23:42)

yeah, one of the marketing pieces. So we had a a a program called the Gold Card, which was a 20% discount on the first Tuesday of every month. Those customers also got a magazine delivered to them from GNC as part of their membership. And on that magazine there was an overwrap. That overwrap had all kinds of GNC products advertised on it. And one of the things that GNC started to do when they were competing with Walmart at the beginning.

was they were advertising vitamin C for 99 cents instead of the 999 that they'd have, they'd more advertise it for 99 cents. Well the challenge was that we were selling GNC vitamin C to our franchisees at a wholesale level for more than 99 cents. We were wholesaling it to them for $1.99 so that they could retail it for $9.99. Now they're receiving a flyer, their customers were receiving a flyer to have customers come into their store and buy products for 99 cents they were paying $2 for it.

Not only what the franchisees did, by the way, as a solution to that was they went to the corporate stores and shopped as a retail customer, bought it for 99 cents and sold it for 99 cents because why wouldn't you? It's available to them. And so that was the mess that we had on our hands. And so we had to acknowledge the fact that that was not the right way to market. It was the right thing to do, but with the franchising channel, that was not the right place to go. And so we acknowledged, okay, no more advertising on the overwrap at prices lower than your wholesale prices. That's something we'll pay attention to.

And you know, it's it's something the business should do, but you make it as a condition like, okay, we hear you, we can fix that. and it and then you just have to start doing it. And once you start doing it, the franchisees trust you again. But it was certainly noisy there when all that was going on. Just one example as n something to happen. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (25:24)

You got another one? Because that I love that one. Like like something that you

thought was gonna be good and and and you know, really good for everybody because it brings more foot traffic in. Okay, we didn't foresee that. Now we've got a fix for it.

J.J. Sorrenti (25:36)

Well, the gold card the cold card became that eventually. it's funny, I can remember going to the first meeting. the division West Coast Division was trying this they called it the President's Club at the time, this this discount program and we're gonna roll it out to the country. And I remember going to that meeting going, god, here we go, another discount program. This is gonna just take margin from our franchisees. I don't know what this is all about. needless to say, I was wrong. This is a fantastic loyalty program.

But that GNC gold card was 20% off the day you purchased the card and twenty percent off on the first Tuesday of every month. that Tuesday of the month became like a fifth week for revenues. So if your store did $300,000 a year, you did six hundred dollars a week, if my math is right, and so you would do that just on Tuesday. and and so no, my math isn't right. But nonetheless, you understand what I mean. Like instead of

If you were doing a thousand dollars a week, you would do a thousand dollars on Tuesday. And it became too much for the physical plant of the store. We had one cash register, we needed four on Tuesdays, but then you only needed one the rest of the month. And so that went on for about a year, year and a half, two years, but it became a problem. The customer service was terrible, customers were getting frustrated. And so there were different ways the company tried to solve that. And over time, they found ways to solve it. But

The discount was important too, if you think about it, because it takes the convenience factor of Walmart out of the customer's hands. Like now I'll wait to buy my vitamin. If I can get it twenty percent off on at GNC on Tuesday, I'll wait and go over there and get it. And that convenience factor of Walmart also got pulled away from from them a little bit, which was a helpful thing for us. But again, it became an issue as the physical plant in the store became just was too much.

Anthony Codispoti (27:28)

And so did you eventually yank the gold card?

J.J. Sorrenti (27:30)

No, they didn't rank it, but they ended up they started to split time. They did a Tuesday and a Thursday. Some months they did it on first and third Tuesdays. They started to spread out the impact a little bit. There were a whole bunch of different programs that were done. And then it was done regionally. so a lot of different solutions. The goal card program, I don't think GNC has it today. I'm talking about a program, but I'll tell you, it was wildly popular. there were millions and millions of loyalty customers inside that program.

in the in the two thousand.

Anthony Codispoti (28:02)

Well. Okay, let's talk about some of the other roles that you've had inside of franchising. Because in two thousand five you left GNC, and you became CEO in a bunch of different industries, tutoring

J.J. Sorrenti (28:16)

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (28:17)

and test prep at Huntington Learning Centers, Tanning at Hollywood Tans, business forums and printing at Safeguard Business Systems, the division of deluxe. how did you see your skills translate?

from

one industry to another and how did you see the similarities and the differences show up in franchising inside of different industries?

J.J. Sorrenti (28:42)

Yeah, that was scary first. and I'll tell you, I learned it. I you mentioned earlier, I left GNC from 99 to 2000. I was the COO for Nevada Bobs Golf during that year and a half that I was gone. and I remember thinking to myself, and that was my first time away from GNC. And I remember thinking to myself at a meeting that I was at Nevada Bobs, there was a salesman there, and we were sitting around the table, and I thought to myself,

That guy's the same guy. He just has a different product in his hand. He's he's the same person that I met at GNC. They just, instead of selling vitamins, he's selling golf equipment. And so it made me comfortable in the fact that we're sitting here evaluating, finding the right product at the right price to help sell it at the right price to the right customer. Like that's what retail's all about. And so I realized GNC, Nevada Bob's, those were the same. what got hard was when I went from

B to C, business to customer to B2B, or or B business services like we have at Huntington Learning Centers. That was a little more difficult. but there I just leveraged, I understand franchising, you understand this business, let's combine our two knowledge bases. I'll rely on your expertise for understanding how to tutor a child. I'm not gonna know how to do that. and combining those two forces became stri extremely valuable. So I think you have to be comfortable.

in your knowledge base, but you also have to know what you don't know and and and allow those subject matter experts to go off and run. I certainly have that experience at Best Life brands. I mean, to try and understand the comp this this country's healthcare systems the way our our people do, it's fascinating how well they understand it. It's amazingly complex, as you might imagine, as we all try to understand it. and so that's been that's been a good advantage here, just to make sure I I'm not gonna ever understand that that well.

Anthony Codispoti (30:34)

So understanding the product or the service that's being delivered is not unimportant, but less important for you and the skills that you bring to the table because you're doing what?

J.J. Sorrenti (30:48)

Yeah, for sure that because you're helping deliver that solution through a franchise through a channel called franchising that's delivering that ultimate experience to whoever's at the b that ends either receiving the product or solution from you. And so I think understanding that that subject matter expertise and understanding that that that business isn't that important as long as you understand what the customer wants at the other end, what's their expectation. and and I think that's the the

Super important part. Now you also have to really want to understand it. You have to love it. I find if you think about my career, I've always helped other people be successful, either through the products that we're delivering or through franchising. I get a lot of graphication out of that. and so tutoring, you have children, you know, when your child's not learning in school, it breaks the home. The home's broken. Like there's nothing happening good in there until you solve that problem.

Huntington Learning Center solves that problem. Sylvan Learning Center is there, some really good businesses. And so I get graphication out of that. So you have to, you may not understand it, but you have to really want to do it. And I think if you have that passion, then you don't need to necessarily understand it at its complex levels. You can then deliver it to the customers or the client.

Anthony Codispoti (32:07)

That makes sense. You spent about a year CEO of Hollywood TANS. And I think the timing of this was right about the time that the industry was getting into some serious headwinds with health-related scrutiny

J.J. Sorrenti (32:21)

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (32:22)

and regulation. Is that what cut your time short there? What what was your tenure like?

J.J. Sorrenti (32:28)

no. unfortunately the deal wasn't necessarily I think the private equity firm that got into the acquisition wasn't it wasn't a good deal and it became a return of investment rather than a return on investment for them. And as the growth person with the background in how to grow a business, they were thinking about how to structure the business maybe to help them just get their money back and get out. And so at that point I realized I kinda said, Well, I'm not sure I'm the right CEO for you and they said, You definitely are not. so now we need to go find a different one.

but look, I think during that period of time we had a really smart marketing leader. I was so fortunate. Listen, my career and all that it's been around has a lot to do with the people that have been around me when I when I'm at those companies. I've been so fortunate to work with the people that I've worked with. There are some amazingly talented people. This marketing person I'm talking about, when I was at Hollywood Dance, sh she's been om Emmy nominated since then. Like for documentaries and things like that. Very talented woman.

she leaned into that regulation. She started to use Hollywood tans. She called it the dirty little beauty secret. Like people don't walk around and say, I go to tanning. But so she leaned into that. Like this can be your dirty little beauty secret. You can come here and you can do what you need to do. You don't need to tell anybody about it. It's all good. And that's pretty smart and it really did start to drive the business. I didn't get to stay around to see all the positive impacts it drove, but but that was pretty smart marketing technique that she used at that time.

Anthony Codispoti (33:56)

So you went to Safeguard Business Systems for eleven years, which was by far the longest stretch of your career outside of GNC. Tell me about the work that you were doing there, what kept you there so long?

J.J. Sorrenti (34:07)

Well, I just mentioned the the team of people that we were able to build there was really why I stayed there. We had a great team. and so it was a combination of that and the support that we got from the parent company at Deluxe that helped us grow safeguard from similar to what we're doing at Best Life Brands. We had roughly a hundred and seventy five to two hundred franchisees when I started. When I left, we had four hundred and fifty. Now that was over ten years, but we added

through so many acquisitions. We were acquiring independence and converting them into safeguard business system brands. And so that's what we did. And we did it pretty successfully. and deluxe really, really liked it because they had a lot of cash flow and they wanted to deploy the cash into something that could give them a good ROI. And this was one of the things that did that. And so I was there because of the growth that we were experiencing and there was all that growth ahead of us. And so as we continued to grow, I was enjoying that and we had just a great team there.

It was fun to go to work every day, and work with those folks because we had a lot of success together.

Anthony Codispoti (35:12)

But in twenty twenty you decide it's time for a new adventure, and you take on the CEO role at Best Life Brands. This is a Monday in March 2020. Everybody remembers what happens in March 2020, the world shuts down. And

J.J. Sorrenti (35:28)

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (35:29)

I think for you it was literally two days after you took the position.

J.J. Sorrenti (35:33)

It was.

Anthony Codispoti (35:33)

What were those first few days like for you on a brand new job?

J.J. Sorrenti (35:35)

It was

crazy. like you might remember if you think back and look back to what happened during the beginnings of COVID. First, nobody knew how long it was gonna last. We didn't understand it. and the other thing that people all talked about was you were pivoting. Like, let's pivot the business. Well, I didn't know what we were pivoting from. I didn't understand the business yet. And so I had to understand kind of the base. Now, again, not in any kind of complex detail.

But there was a franchisee at one of our brands that would call me all the time and say, Okay, the restaurants are doing curbside delivery. What's our curbside delivery? What are we doing about this? This we need a curbside delivery solution. That's what they're doing. What are we doing? It was a great question. It was a great challenge, one I'll never forget. By the way, that franchisee was brand new with me. So he was new in the business, frustrated that he got into this and then COVID hit.

Very successful today, happy ending. Very, very good at what he does in his business today, five years, six years later. but it was a really good question. So it was that kind of

Anthony Codispoti (36:36)

Which brand specifically was he involved in?

J.J. Sorrenti (36:38)

he was at care patrol. he still is at care patrol, which

Anthony Codispoti (36:40)

Which which is

J.J. Sorrenti (36:42)

which so care patrol helps people, families find the right senior living solution for their senior parent who might be leaving the home. And the way Care Patrol does that is in person.

And they tore the people through those nursing home and and assisted living facilities, which at the beginning of COVID, there was nobody visiting any of those facilities. And so he had a rough start because he couldn't necessarily run the business the way the business had been run before. And so to his point, what's my curbside delivery? I need something to do here. and so we found ways to get through that. and eventually, you know, care patrol is wildly successful. In fact,

Just got the results from last month's we just set another record inside that business now with you know 230 franchisees across 40 plus states. It's a wildly successful brand. But it was it was a really interesting experience. I'll also I'll share this one other story about the beginning of COVID that was just very interesting to me. The founder of Comfort Care had been sitting as the interim CEO for Best Life Brands. He had come back into the role, they had a CEO, he left.

News, the former founder of Comfort Care was sitting in the chair. So on that second and third day when COVID was becoming a national story, he was running around the office. Now remember, he had been in home care for 15 years at that point, 20 years at that point. He was going around the office telling employees, I want you to go to Sam's Club, I want you to go to Costco, I want you to buy every mask you can find. He said, The people in Europe and Asia are laughing at us because they're not wearing masks right now. I you need to go find every mask.

It's coming, and I'm telling you right now, you need to go get masks. And of course, I thought to myself, this guy's crazy. What's he talking about? Masks. I don't understand. Of course, within a week, everyone was wearing masks. You couldn't go anywhere without a mask. But he was a week and a half, two weeks ahead of that. And thankfully we had a lot of inventory for our caregivers and our franchisees. But he he had seen that kind of thing coming, which just shows you what the experience of being in an industry can bring you in situations like a black swan event like that.

Anthony Codispoti (38:50)

Yeah. go back to the care patrol story there, the curbside delivery. What was the solution? I mean this is something that was taking place in person. How do you navigate it?

J.J. Sorrenti (39:00)

Yeah, video. So a lot of our franchisees, if you go out on YouTube now, a lot of our franchisees are able to use video or i in in cases where, as an example, we still like to do this in person, but when you can't tour in person, video became the solution. And sometimes that works if you're in Arizona and your parents in Pennsylvania, you can't be there to go tour the facility. So video helped us solve a lot of that. and so that was

the solution. We had to find ways to get videos available so that then we could share with the parents and the families this is what this cons this is what this community looks like whenever you want to try and think about living there.

Anthony Codispoti (39:38)

So for care patrol in particular, this is a pretty big pivot, right? It used to be in person. You like just kind of walking through the space. this is where mom is gonna be. This is where grandpa's gonna be. Okay, I like I I feel comfortable with this. You go to video, it's you still get a good i idea, but it's it's not quite the same. Did you guys see a drop off in in business?

J.J. Sorrenti (40:00)

Yeah, for sure. And and Care Patrol was impacted the most of the brands we had at that time, Care Patrol was impacted the most by COVID and and the situation there. Because if you remember, again, t trying to dredge up really bad things, but nursing homes were not a fun place to be at the beginning of COVID, especially in certain states. and so yeah, it was it was impactful to our franchisees. but in that case, this is a really good example of the private equity firm that we worked in.

You know, we deferred royalty payments. We didn't collect royalties from our franchisees for months and told them, Hold on to the cash, you need the cash flow, we'll we'll collect it later. and we did that for months. And again, the first time we deferred the payment, we said we'll defer it for ninety days, because again, we didn't know how long COVID was gonna last. Well, ninety days came around like, No, we need a little bit more time. So it took six months, nine months. and so I was very proud

And I knew after I've been there a couple of weeks that I had joined the right business because here's a private equity firm that usually by reputation says cash is the most important thing that we need. And they said, no, no, let the franchisees pay us later. We just want them to get through this and we'll get through this with them together. Now, I can't imagine some of the other things that that private equity firm that I work for today was dealing with. They had manufacturing businesses, they had software companies.

they were probably getting crushed from a cash flow perspective. But to us, they said, no, you do what's right for the franchisee, figure it out, just make sure we get paid eventually. And we did. And I knew at that point that I was in the right place that I could leverage those kind of discussions for bigger business down the road.

Anthony Codispoti (41:43)

At what point did care patrol start to stabilize, come back to normal?

J.J. Sorrenti (41:47)

Yeah, it took about four or five months. And I we lost some franchisees. We did. but it took us, we got to the middle of the summer, late in the summer. we pivoted the business in a secondary way there too. This was super important. And this wasn't because I think we'd have done this anyway, but the the business was structured so that franchising typically what happens is you take a percentage of your sales and share those with the franchise or you know, the franchisee collects and

You guys all know McDonald's or Subway pays five percent or six percent or three percent, whatever percentage it is. Well, care patrol was set up in a different way where the royalty was a fixed dollar amount. It didn't matter if you could have no sales in the month and you had to pay a royalty. Let's call it $1,000 a month. Not the right number, but let's say it's a thousand dollars a month. So if you had no sales, you paid a thousand dollars. Well, in COVID, they had no sales and they had to pay a thousand dollars. Where are they gonna get the thousand dollars from? and so we we shifted the business and we went to the franchisees and said,

We don't want to fix royalty anymore. We want to share in your success because we know the business is going to grow. So we'll take a percentage. Here's the average. We need to get at least eighty percent of the system to convert to this so that it makes sense for all of us. And we did our brand president who was the founder. We went to the franchisees and said, We want to share in your success. We want to be aligned with you. We don't want a fixed royalty rate. We wanna if you're up, we wanna be up with you. If you're down, we wanna be down with you. And so we made that change in the business, and that was a very, very good.

change for us and it was very, very good change for the franchisees. and so that was something else that happened during COVID that we pivoted on and and made the business better as a result.

Anthony Codispoti (43:25)

Good for the franchisees, especially in those lean times, so they don't have that fixed rate coming out anymore. And good for the franchise or because I'm guessing it came to fruition. Your thoughts that the business is really gonna grow. And so now that percentage rate for the most part is higher than what those fixed rates would.

J.J. Sorrenti (43:43)

No question about it. No question about it. It's a it's you know, if anybody's thinking about franchising, the that Care Patrol brand is one of the most successful bottom line businesses. We actually pref we actually produce the franchisees average pro forma in our franchise disclosure document for the whole system, the whole average is in there. It's one of the most successful franchises I've ever worked for. Just that that brand by itself, it's amazing how successful our franchisees are now. That's on their sweat.

and on their hard work and on their blood equity, they're working really hard out there. But it's bottom line driven. It's very successful and it helps thousands of families and communities, which is really

Anthony Codispoti (44:24)

Since we're talking about care patrol, it's what can you tell us about the franchise opportunity?

J.J. Sorrenti (44:30)

Just that. you know, we have two hundred and thirty or so. The investment is just under a hundred thousand dollars to get started. Some of that's our franchise fees, some of that's just getting a office ready and getting started with things that you need for your business. and then, you know, the averages for the franchisees are in the F D D. I can't talk too much about that. but the percentages are significant. there there's there's some very, very profitable people.

But again, you have to really want to help people. That's what this business is all about. But helping families solve that problem is hugely hugely gratifying. it's almost to the point where a lot of our brands in senior care, we're almost like a nonprofit. You know, it's our why is really strong. but we're not a nonprofit. We're we're actually found a way to not only help the people get this solution done, but also but also solve the problem for them. And and I look, I'll say it this way.

because it's an important part of the care patrol business model. It's also free to the client. So that client comes to us and says, I need to find somewhere for mom to live. And I've got three days because she's coming out of the hospital or she's gonna be moving out of a house. And so they they go through an interview process that's proprietary for us. We identify a handful of communities for them for them to visit. We go visit it with them, and then mom moves in all free. The community then reimburses the franchisee.

for the f like a finder's fee if you will. and so the payments made between the community and the franchisee, not from the client. So all that work we do on behalf of the client, not paid for by the families. So that's even more gratifying because you're solving this problem for them. It's just amazing. It's just amazing. Sure is.

Anthony Codispoti (46:09)

That's tremendous. It's a no it's a no brainer for the families then at that point. Why wouldn't you do it?

J.J. Sorrenti (46:16)

Sure is. And listen, my own experience moved mother in law into a the wrong community two times before. I didn't know about Care Patrol. It didn't work here yet.

and my wife was faxing applications in to get into these communities because we didn't know any better. We didn't know how to do it. I would've n we would have never made any of those mistakes if I didn't know something like Air Patrol existed.

Anthony Codispoti (46:39)

Mm. And it sounds like one of the other carryovers was maybe still do some level of the video tours that you guys

J.J. Sorrenti (46:46)

It's

Anthony Codispoti (46:47)

started doing during COVID.

J.J. Sorrenti (46:48)

it's available, it's an asset that we have. So the franchisees can use it for again for remote caregivers. but it's not the way we do business. Our primary way of doing business is face to face. It's the value that we bring. By the way, for those of us that understand Net Promoter Scores, the Net Promoter Score at Care Patrol is ninety one. you know, it's phenomenal. all of our brands at

Best life brands. The lowest net promoter score we have for any of our brands is seventy one. That's the lowest score we have. and we're working really hard to get that up. But it's crazy to think about that being the worst score. It's just those are those are really, really high scores for people that just want to recommend your business to others because the great work that all franchisees do.

Anthony Codispoti (47:30)

That's really terrific. So you come in at the start of COVID, you're drinking from a fire hose, you got a lot of things to figure out. How is it that you are able to encourage and fuel the kind of growth that we were just talking?

J.J. Sorrenti (47:49)

Well, again, I think we had a strong team here and I saw that when I came to join. That was one of the four things and when I evaluated this business, I liked I liked the demographics. I liked the ability to expand the care continuum that we were currently in with a whole bunch of other places to go. I kinda liked the private equity firm, although I didn't really know them that well but I was learning. But I really liked the team. I met a lot of the team through my interview process and I thought this team was exactly

I was the kind of leader this team needed. And this team was exactly the kind of team I wanted to be with. and so we had a really strong team. And so the the the easy opportunity for us was just to get the message out. Like, hey, yes, COVID's happening, but seniors still need help. And we're the right place for it, and here's why. And all we needed to do was get them to start talking to some of our people on our team. And and I and I knew that that would really drive the franchise development side of the business. And it did.

There's a lot of competition out there in senior home care. There aren't enough of us out there yet. I'm friendly with several CEOs and other senior home care companies. I can tell you, I was not friendly with anybody else in the nutrition space. I was not friendly with anybody else in the tutoring space. We were competitors. but here there's just so much demand that not any of us can f all of us can't fulfill it. And so we all kind of work together a little bit to try and understand how we can solve the problems that

that the demand is creating for our industry. so that's the best part about this is we're not necessarily taken from each other. We're all contributing. Of course, I want my disproportionate share and our brands. And I want that for me and for our franchisees. But there's so much demand out there that it's it's a fun space to work in that in that way too.

Anthony Codispoti (49:36)

Can you give me a specific example of how you collaborate with some of these other folks?

J.J. Sorrenti (49:41)

Well, I think just just talking to them about sometimes we get requests for for services in territories that we're not servicing today. And they do too. I get requests for somebody that wants to open a location in Boston. Well, we don't have any territories left in Boston. but a competitor might. And and so sometimes we try and help that way. Although I don't really do that. We don't do that too much because

I don't necessarily want competition to come into the market for our franchisee in Boston. But in places where we are not servicing today and we get requests for that service, I think helping people solve those problems are are fun ways for us to think about how to do that. And we don't necessarily do that directly. Sometimes we do that through referral partners. but but those are ways that we are able to help each other. And then how are you thinking about the business? One of our competitors thinks about the business and from a from a caregiver market share perspective.

Like I gotta get as many caregivers as I can because that's my inventory. that's a really interesting way to think about this business. That's different than the way that we have always traditionally thought about it. So we challenge each other that way too in many ways.

Anthony Codispoti (50:51)

How do you think about it?

J.J. Sorrenti (50:54)

From a caregiver perspective? Well, for us, it it's all about retention. For us, I think we have a lot of good a lot of good programs on the recruitment side. One of the things that the Comfort Care founder did 15 years ago was put together a caregiver recruiter academy to help them understand, how help the franchisees understand how to recruit. What happened in COVID throughout franchising.

was very interesting to me because I watched I mentioned this earlier about GNC. I said GNC franchise because they don't want to have to deal with the people problem, right? They they allowed the franchisees to do that. Well guess what happened at COVID? A lot of franchisors realized that if I don't have employees, I'm not going to be open. And the franchise or realized that if they're not open, they're not paying me a percentage of sales. And so a lot of franchisors pivoted to start to help their franchisees recruit.

Well, we were 15 years ahead of that. Comfort care had already started thinking about helping franchisees recruit select and qualified caregivers for that long a period of time. So it was fun to watch them try and catch up to us. We were already doing it. and and so that's the way we think about it. We think about trying to make sure that we've got as much capacity as possible, but it's not just having headcount. It's also making sure they're the right caregivers for the right solutions inside whatever.

Whatever wherever we have demand for, through certain programs and things like that. So I think we think about it esoterically, but we also think about it in a very detailed level based on the client and their their demands and needs.

Anthony Codispoti (52:33)

Can

you give us an example of what that recruiting education looks like for the franchisees? Like, do this.

J.J. Sorrenti (52:39)

it's it's ex it's

it's extensive. It's education. And look, I think it's it's interesting because you can also put scientific basis to it. we can help the franchisee think: listen, if you think you want to have 300 clients in your business, then you probably need 300 caregivers. If you're gonna have 300 caregivers and you have a 30% turnover, you're gonna be hiring 90 new caregivers a year. And so if you're hiring 90 new caregivers, you probably have to interview

400 caregivers to get 90 caregivers. So that means you better be interviewing two caregivers every day. If you didn't interview two today, you're gonna fall behind tomorrow. And so you do that backwards math and help them realize that shoot, I wasn't interviewing two caregivers every day. Well, if you're not, you're either not gonna grow or you're not gonna at least just keep up if those are your targets and you can back into those targets. And if you think about it from that perspective, you start there and realize that now I need to create the dollar programs and the recruiting programs.

necessary to find two good candidates that I can interview or three good candidates every day so that I can hire two and one falls out. So that's kind of the math. So I think we let them that we let the franchisees think about it from that perspective. And then they've got all the tools and there's classroom tools, there's it's it's we've got major investments in this recruiter academy program with headcount and libraries of information to help franchisees do that work.

Anthony Codispoti (54:03)

So

give me the one sentence description of each of the five brands that are in the portfolio and then tie it together with the common thread.

J.J. Sorrenti (54:11)

So comfort care is in home care, think companion care. so nutrition, hygiene, errand running, things like that. That's comfort care. care patrol, I mentioned earlier, helping families find the right community for their senior parent leaving home. Blue Moon Estate Sales is just that as they're downsizing, leaving their home, getting rid of assets around the home. So we do estate sales across the country, largest.

Franchise brand and estate sales in the country. Next day access are allowing people access into their homes with dignity to move around their homes through hang bars, lifts, elevators, ramps to come into the home or throughout the home. And then Boost Home Healthcare is is Medicare based. Think coming out of the hospital or think needing physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy,

wound care, infusion therapy, things like that. So it's all Medicare, mostly Medicare, some of it private pay, in the medical space, if you will, with nurses and physical therapists. So those are the five brands today. And you think about it across the senior care continuum, you know, as as people want to stay in their homes, we've got comfort care and boost and next day access. As they go to leave their homes, Blue Moon can help them in that transition as they move into a community that care patrol can help them identify.

That's kind of the narrow space we're in today. It gets this wide if you want to think about grabbing seniors at the nutrition or financial planning front end of franchising in senior care all the way to end of life. I jokingly talk about this a lot, but for some reason, and I might be regulatory based, but nobody's franchised funeral homes. I I I think I know why. I think it's because it's local and everybody deals with their local funeral home. But

there's still an opportunity to be local and yet have a national brand behind us powered by, et cetera. and so we've got I I think about that all the time. I wonder about that. So front end to to the to the end of life and everything in between. Think audiology, think podiatry, think stretching, think adult daycare. Like there's so many places that we can go in the franchising space in between. That's that's what Best Life Brands is thinking about.

as we continue that care continuum.

Anthony Codispoti (56:38)

Okay.

Any leading indicators on which direction you're gonna head next?

J.J. Sorrenti (56:44)

well no. I think all those are available to us. it becomes opportunity based. Who's got an idea or who's got a franchise that's burgeoning? but all those are available to us. There's nothing really that's next at this minute. I would have never predicted next day access to be our next, which was two years ago. It's been wildly successful. we had 30 locations when we acquired the business. Now we have 120 in two years.

and the franchisees are increasing sales at a double digit rate. So it's been a really good success for us and we'd like to keep trying that with more brands as we continue to grow as continue to grow.

Anthony Codispoti (57:22)

You know, with the five different brands that you have, all the different independent franchisees, is there a way to do some sort of coordinated like cross referrals? Like, you've kind of moved out of the need for our product, but here's a sister company that could help you across town.

J.J. Sorrenti (57:40)

There sure are. And there's a lot of that in inside. There's been a lot of that between comfort care and next day access, because again, we're helping people in the homes. So as they see the need, then we can refer that and have the client contact Next Day Access for their solutions. so yeah, there's there's there's some of that today. A lot of that gets a little more difficult, just frankly, because let's say let's say the care patrol franchisee has been in the market for five years. They may already have a relationship with the home care business.

they're giving they're getting referrals and they're passing referrals on. When Comfort Care comes into the market, of course care patrol and comfort care will work together. But that care patrol franchise is going to say, hey, I I've got a relationship with this guy over here. I'm not going to just end that. I've I've been really good business partners with them. And so we don't get 100% of the transfer of business over between the two, but it's available to us, right? So I think as the business continues to mature, as time goes on, as these independents maybe

don't stay or there's a business ownership change, then they can shift over. as the brands we get get to know each other more, we'll have more and more

Anthony Codispoti (58:47)

What

do you look for in a franchisee?

J.J. Sorrenti (58:50)

Well, I think every franchise candidate has a strength. They they've got a strength in some space. It could be marketing, it could be finance, could be operations, it could just be an interest in the space. I just want to be in this business. And to be able to understand and leverage that passion around what they're good at and then building around that is really what we look for. We want candidates that are that are w that wanna be in business for themselves, that wanna follow a system.

That want to be in our space and then want to be in our brand. Those are kind of the four gatekeeper questions that we talk to candidates about. But then when we get a hold of them, we say, okay, you're really good at marketing. We'll help you understand our marketing processes, but we need to be here to support you for finance operations, operations. That's what we're we have systems for that. We can help you support. As long as they're willing to accept that support. Because it's it's amazing to me, Anthony.

How many times we get candidates and they say they want our help and then they get in there and go, I don't think I want to do it that way. It's like, no, no, that is the right way. we just had a franchisee, I love to tell this story, at Blue Moon. during COVID. She was she worked at Disney, she was in their payroll group. She's laid off from cov from during COVID because they're not processing payroll at Disney during COVID.

Her husband's a school teacher, and they decide, and she's eight months pregnant, and she decides that she's not gonna go back to Disney when they call her back. She's gonna become a Blue Moon estate sales franchisee in Knoxville, Tennessee. They're gonna lift their whole business world up. And I'm talking to her before she signed her franchise agreement. And I I hung up the phone with her and I thought, my God, I hope this works. Because she's betting it all on Blue Moon. and so they picked up and went to Knoxville.

Her husband found another teaching job in Knoxville. They had their baby four and a half years later, now two years ago. She's the number one franchisee in our system. She's by far the number one franchisee in our system today. She's gonna eclipse any revenue numbers that anybody's ever done at Blue Moon. And about two years ago, the PR firm picked up on this and had a magazine interview her. And they asked her, What'd you do? Like, how'd you do this? And she said, I did.

Everything they told me to do. That's all I did. All I did was do everything. And so I took that article and I sent it to our board of directors. And one of the board members sent me an email back and said, That was brilliant that she said that. Like that was a really good idea to tell her that. And I said, We didn't tell her anything. That's what she said. That was her interview. And so we that just proves she had no estate sales experience. None. Went to a market she never dealt with before, never even lived there. And so

I love to tell that story because I can tell you I was worried at the front end of this, hoping that it would work, and she's completely blown it away. And so it's it's a really exciting story. And that's again the when you want to work in franchising. So people like that. People that are just willing to bet it all, but they want to follow the system. That is so important. And if you do that, we can probably do pretty good things with you.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:06)

You guys have figured out the blueprint. They just need to follow your framework now. Yeah.

J.J. Sorrenti (1:02:09)

Yeah, and and it it works, you know, it's it's ninety-nine point nice. It's y it works. It does. And if it doesn't, then we're gonna double down and figure out what the curbside delivery is gonna be for you. Cause sometimes that doesn't work exactly the right same way in every market, but we're here to figure that out. We've got enough experience to be able to do that.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:27)

JJ, what's one of the hardest things you've had to overcome and what did going through that teach you?

J.J. Sorrenti (1:02:35)

two things. I I I'll I'll I'll tell you about there's two, but I'll I'll talk about the business one. And if we have time, we can go to the other one. The the business one, this was really interesting to me, and I learned two really good lessons here. I was at GNC, I was I was in the leadership role at franchising. The CEO came to me and said, We need to cut our support team significantly. We had 40 people that were out there supporting the franchisees.

on a day-to-day basis and he wanted me to cut it to 14. We're gonna go from 42 to 14. And I knew it was the wrong decision. I knew it was not gonna be right. And I pushed back a little and he went, I'm not talking to you about this. Just go figure it out. You have to go do it. And it just and then get back to me when it's done. So after pushing back a little and telling this isn't gonna work, I went off and executed it. And I'll tell you, you know, we went down to the 14 people

and we picked, of course, the 14 best people that we had out of those 42. Well, what happened after that? There were two or three of those people like, I can't do this job, so they left. So now we're down to eleven or ten. I can still remember a conversation I had with the woman in Phoenix, and she was gonna go from the Phoenix territory to the whole West Coast all the way up to Seattle, because that's the territory. She's like, if you do that to me, I'm gonna quit. I'm like, you're not gonna quit. It'll be fine. You'll look how success you'll be so successful with.

Seattle needs to get fixed. You're you've done a great job in Phoenix. She she quit. She told me she was gonna quit. She did. And so it took about six months. And and at six months, the the operations in the field were getting terrible. The COs calling me going, what's going on in the field? I'm getting pictures, people are the stores look like crap. Nobody nobody's doing the right thing. It's like, because we don't have anybody checking on what's supposed to be right. We're not we're not auditing the right thing. We don't have enough people. And so

He eventually after six months and then feedback was coming, he came back to me and said, Okay, you can add seven more back. So you can go to 21. Okay. So we did that, kind of settled in, things calmed down. So I I learned two really important lessons there. The the first one was push back harder. I I knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong. And I didn't push back hard enough because eventually I got six months later, I got something in the middle anyway. I just had to go through this terrible experience. So

Horrible lesson, but good lesson to learn, like push back. When you know something's wrong, don't be afraid to push back. Because you're going to go through a lot of bad times if you know the decision's wrong. But the better lesson that I learned, because I wanted to be the CEO someday, that CEO did not have an environment where pushing back was okay. I was afraid to push back. I learned that's the most important lesson that I learned in that story was make sure you have an environment when you're making the decision, you're allowing your team to push you, push back on you.

Cause that CEO didn't have that and I was afraid. Maybe I I don't know exactly what, maybe for my job. And so those were the two lessons. Push back harder, but damn it, when you're in the big job, you make sure you have the right culture because I I did not live in an environment where I knew what was right and I couldn't tell the guy what was right. And so I think that's what I it was hard. it was so hard. I I to this day I can remember the day after Thanksgiving, which is a big retail day, getting a phone call th saying,

I got just somebody sh shopped one of the franchise stores a complete disaster. We gotta do something different here. Like, I know we need people. I know what the answer is.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:04)

So how do you create

that culture? How do you let your employees know that it's okay to push back?

J.J. Sorrenti (1:06:10)

I I j we just do. I there's a great there's a great quote in Colin Powell's leadership book and it talks about it talks about having a lot of discussion before the decision is made. Super important to have that discussion. Allow for it, collaborate, make sure you give people space to talk about what you're deciding on. Once that decision's made, you have to execute it like it's your own though.

'Cause now it kinda is. because you did get a chance to give input. So I think the cultural out I didn't I wasn't involved in forty two to fourteen. Nobody came to me and asked me how many the r what the right number was. I I certainly wouldn't have said fourteen. I probably wouldn't have said twenty-one. Maybe that's why I wasn't in the discussion, 'cause they didn't want to listen to me. But I think you have to be all you have to allow the key people to have input to those decisions. And then at that stage,

You also have to agree have agreement that once we walk out of this room together, I need you to execute this like this was your idea, not mine. Or I'll do it like it's my idea, not yours. Whatever that is, we have to execute it that way. I think allowing that culture and and that's what I've tried to do and and the teams seem to appreciate it. we don't always arrive at places that we all agree, but I think they understand it and and and and appreciate that culture from that perspective.

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:35)

What was the other hard thing that you went through, J J?

J.J. Sorrenti (1:07:39)

it was a tough one. It was very personal. I as you know, I s I spent fifteen years at GNC. Excuse me, I there was a year I missed there, but I was there fifteen years. And they were making an organizational change that I did not agree with that impacted me directly. and I was under an employment agreement at that time and I thought that it impacted my employment agreement in a way that was not favorable to them but favorable to me. and so unlike anything I've ever done in my life, I

Told them I didn't agree with this decision and that I was leaving the company because of their decision. I had nowhere to go. I did not have my what's next planned. I'm a very planful, mindful steps A to step B to step C. And so I I left. and when I resigned, they said, Well, we don't agree with you. And we don't have we so we don't accept your resignation, so you have to come to work tomorrow. I'm like, I'm not coming, I'm not coming tomorrow. I resigned.

I'll give you the notice. Like we had a notice conversation and I said, But I have a trip scheduled tomorrow. I've you know, notice three weeks out, but I have a trip scheduled tomorrow. Should I still go on my trip or you want me to count? No, no, you go on your trip. Okay, that's what you're gonna do. So when I left on the next morning, I went and connected my laptop to the network and I w I couldn't connect. and so they cut off my access. And so they said they they they they called me and said, Yeah, your office is locked, don't come back, you're done.

And we'll see in court. And and so it ended up this is a company I work for for fifteen years, right? And we had a dispute, and unfortunately it took a third party to settle that dispute. And there were some really awkward moments in depositions and arbitrations where you're sitting across from the person that you worked with for fifteen years saying things about you that you're really surprised to hear. it was really, really, really difficult personally for my wife and I both. but

I was right. I could read a contract. I was right. And and it worked out, you know, that that the company was wrong in the decision that they made. And it and and then it got even more difficult because this the the back end of that was, you know, as I mentioned, I was kind of a franchisee advocate in the role that I was in, and the franchisees were reaching out to me, getting ready to go after the company again and asking for my assistance. And I I didn't feel the right, even though I felt wronged by the company, I didn't feel

like I would be the right thing. I just always wanted to do what was right. So I I did a little bit of that work to help the franchisees and the company maybe get back together again, even though I wasn't there anymore. but then I just got too busy with my Huntington Learning Center responsibilities and had to move on. but it was really, really hard stuff for six or nine months. No work. All you get to do is sit at home and worry about did you make the right decision? Did you make the right call? And eventually a third party told me that I did.

Anthony Codispoti (1:10:34)

Wow. Who were you leaning on for support and help during that time?

J.J. Sorrenti (1:10:38)

The missus, she was amazingly supportive. and it was super necessary because, you know, your your worth is not supposed to be about who you it's supposed to be who you are, not what you are. But I was fifteen years at GNC. I mean I knew nothing else. And and and so yeah, my wife was extremely supportive. As I mentioned, I mean she sat in the arbitrations hearings in New York City with us as we went through that. It was awful two days.

But yeah, she was there every step of the way and she believed that I did the right thing. And and again, and again, it was it was really good supportive. It it was it was a tough, tough time. And it it left some pretty hard wounds. Like it was hard to think about GNC in a positive way for a really long time. I don't mind it now. I look back on those experiences and I worked with some amazing people. It's just the exit wasn't that great.

Anthony Codispoti (1:11:27)

Yeah. Anything you would have done differently?

J.J. Sorrenti (1:11:30)

Mm. I try and by the way, all through that arbitration, I kept trying to settle. Like, hey, I'm willing to accept this if you got and nobody wanted to talk to me about it. They got stubborn and didn't want to accept any kind of settlement offers or any settlement discussions. And so we went to the mat all the way to the end. I don't I don't think I would have done anything differently. I just I just didn't agree with the decision that they made relative to the the structure of the business. And

There was a there was also a decision they were making that I also didn't agree with. I had a conversation with someone that at a senior level that said, We're gonna close four hundred franchise stores and I said, I I'm not I don't wanna participate in that. And they said, Well, we just have too many stores, we need to close them. I'm like, But yesterday I signed people up and now I gotta go tell we're closing. I'm not I just did not wanna participate. So there was a there was a moralistic thing and then there was a contract thing and the two things combined just like I I need

I can't I can't be here for this. This isn't the right thing to do. And I it was not. It was after

Anthony Codispoti (1:12:29)

It's no longer the right place for you. Yeah.

J.J. Sorrenti (1:12:33)

a after a really amazing

Anthony Codispoti (1:12:36)

JJ, before I ask my last question, I want to do three quick things for the audience. First of all, if you want to learn more about what JJ and Best Life brands are doing, just go to their website, bestlifebrands.com. It'll be in the show notes, but three simple words, bestlifebrands.com. Also, if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you're listening. It also sends a signal that helps others discover our podcast. So thanks for taking a quick moment to do that.

And as a reminder, you can finally get your employees access to therapists, doctors, and prescription medications that counterintuitively actually increases. See, it increases your company's net profits starting in the very first month. There's no copays, there's no deductibles, a lot of part-timers qualify too. So learn more about how to have happier employees, less turnover, and a stronger bottom line with this Bain Capital Insurance product at adbackbenefits.com.

So JJ, last question for you. As you think about the work that you're doing now with Best Life brands, what is it that you most want to be remembered for?

J.J. Sorrenti (1:13:42)

I heard Lou Holtz speak a long time ago. and he talked about you you always want to be significant. People think that success is what you're trying to be measured by. And success can be mean a whole bunch of different things to a whole bunch of different people, but when you leave, your success goes with you. What do you take with you? your success. But if you leave something behind, if you leave some positive impact in some way, then you can be significant. And I think

That's that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to leave my mark in a positive way. I think the greatest metaphor I use when I was a kid, I'm an avid golfer. When I was a kid, my dad was teaching me how to play and he would take me into a sand bunker and you know, the old speech around leave something better than you found it, leave it better than you found it. That's what he always taught me about a sand bunker. Right. So we rake it to clean it up, make sure it's better. That's that's what I want to be

remembered for. I want to be remembered as, you know, leaving something better than the way I found it when I started. I think that becomes significant. And hopefully that's the mark that I can leave that will will help best life brands and Huntington Learning Centers and Hollywood Tans and GNC and all the other brands. hopefully that's the way I can be remembered.

Anthony Codispoti (1:14:57)

Love it. JJ Serenti from Best Life Brands. I wanna be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I appreciate you being here.

J.J. Sorrenti (1:15:05)

It's as I said, it was a privilege. I love the work that you do. You're very good at what you do. and now my next meeting is literally to go talk about healthcare insurance costs inside my company. So your ad hits home right now. And so I can appreciate the work that you do on that side of things too. I think it's a great benefit that you bring to a lot of businesses.

Anthony Codispoti (1:15:25)

Many thanks, J J. Hey folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast. Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put that into action today.

Connect with J.J. Sorrenti:

Website: www.bestlifebrands.com

Social Media: https://x.com/jjsorrenti 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjsorrenti/