Conversations With Coffey

Transform Your Franchise with Expert Coaching - Angela Cote

• Guy Coffey • Season 2 • Episode 1

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In this episode of Conversations with Coffey, I'm joined by the incredible Angela Cote, founder and CEO of AC Inc. 

Angela offers key advice for both emerging franchisors and seasoned entrepreneurs.

Angela shares her fascinating journey, from growing up in the family-owned M&M Meat Shops franchise, navigating the challenges and becoming a successful multi-unit franchisee and starting her franchise consultancy. 

We dive into the pivotal role of franchise business coaches and how AC Inc.'s unique training programs are boosting the industry. 

You can find out more about Angela and AC inc. on the following channels:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelacoteinc/
Web: https://fieldcoachexperts.com/

Connect with Guy Coffey:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/guycoffey
Website: www.guycoffey.com
Instagram: @guycoffey
YouTube: @guycoffey

  Welcome to Conversations with Coffee with me, Guy Coffey. I've owned independent businesses. I've been a franchisee of a global brand for over 17 years, and I co founded and successfully exited our own franchise brand. And this podcast is dedicated to growing the lives and businesses of entrepreneurs everywhere by sharing conversations with successful owners and some of my own experiences and insights.

So please grab a cup of coffee and let's just dive right into today's episode.  Welcome to today's episode of conversations with coffee with me, Geek Coffee and our really special guest today, Angela Cote, all the way from Victoria, Canada. If you're at home, are you at home today and yeah, you're making it sound 

like I traveled for this  

Well, I do travel quite a bit so I do see that But angela is the founder of ac inc and what they do is specialize in helping coach up  coaches so that franchisors can better serve their franchisees.

And I had the pleasure of meeting Angela, um, Stephanie and I did, I don't know, three or four years ago at an IFA show at the recommendation of Mr. Scott Cannon, the new brand president for Frenchies. So I've got to give a shout out to Scott for that. Um, because it's just been great watching you, um, change the franchise industry and change a lot of lives through the work that you and your team do.

So without further ado, could you just give us a little background on you, Angela? 

Yeah, thank you. I guess, is this the part where I kind of tell you like how I got into franchising and yeah. 

Yeah. It sounds like you got there in the back of your dad's.  

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, the meat mobile. They called it the meat mobile because I'm going to meet everybody.

I always thought that when I drove the company vehicle around, it must have steaks and all these good things in it. But  anyway, I'll back up a little bit. So yeah, my dad is the founder of a franchise company in Canada that grew to almost 500 locations over the years. I always start with that because that tends to get people's attention.

Called Eminem Meat Shops, uh, actually rebranded now to Eminem Food Market. And so over the years, I, I, you know, I was in the back of the store as a kid doing child labor, putting stickers on boxes and the kinds of things you do with your kids when you're a founder, right? And, uh, working in our corporate store and then working for different franchisees over the years.

And then working in our home office. So all different jobs, but where, where I think the most pivotal to put most pivotal times for me were, uh, when I was working in the field, supporting franchisees as a 20 year old female boss's daughter. Right. 

Oh yeah. Lots of credibility. 

Yeah. So these were often, you know, older male franchisees that were more than twice my age.

That had invested 400, 000. And there I am showing up to be the one to help them with their business. So God put through the ringer for a few years there. Um, and then I became a franchisee of the brand. I wasn't my plan, but we were ready to put stores on Vancouver island and the market demographics were a little wonky compared to other markets.

And so they were like, well, let's not. you know, award that to a stranger and you go do it. And I thought that they meant like, go be the corporate manager, we'll open them corporately and then sell them. And then I'll go have a career after that. But it was like, no, you go be the franchisee, you go take the risk, you get the financing, you know?

Okay. So fortunately I was young and naive and, and did it because it did teach me a lot over the years. So 18 years as a multi unit franchisee. Uh, which, yeah, so that's my background is, you know, having all these different, um, touch points in franchising and, and not realizing what I was learning over the years.

And then people telling me, you might know a few things. And  so I don't know, one or two maybe things that I learned over the years from that. 

Yeah. Well talk about credibility now. I mean, you, you grew up in franchising. You coached franchise, franchisors in a really difficult role and then you were, yeah, or multi, I'm sure they're still around.

So, um, then, you know, actually being a multi unit owner makes, you know, you've walked the walk basically. You don't just talk the talk.  

And you know, what's, what's really funny is. Um, about seven or eight years ago when I was trying to figure out what to do next, because I was restless at, you know, the stores were running quite well.

And my husband was mostly taking care of them at that time. And I would go out networking in my local community. And I was hiding the fact that I was hiding my background because I felt like it actually diminished. I was like, Oh, you're just a founder. Stop. Like you just grew up in this. You must have a silver.

Spoon. You know, you must, uh, it must be easy for you and you know, all that. So I, I hid it for a while, but then it would come out and then people would be like, well, wait a minute, you must know about franchising. Would you help me with this or that, you know, in my local community. And then over the years I kind of was like, all right, let's do this. 

So out of all the things in franchising, cause as you and I know it's, it's its own business. And it's small business, which has its own list of challenges daily, right? You know, you know, some people's focus on bringing people into the franchising world. Some people focus on helping unmarketed. Some people's focus on opera, you know, operations, which you're kind of in, but how did you focus on this?

Which I think, and that's one of the reasons, besides the fact that I really like you and admire you, like, this is a really important part of franchising. Because I think, from being a franchisee for 17 years and having our own franchise system, that the coaches are often overlooked as an integral part of the franchisee success path.

You know, sometimes I've seen  I've seen it where it's just whoever applies for the job and they get a couple of weeks of training. They've never operated a franchise. They'd never operated a small business. They don't have a financial background. They don't have a marketing background, but they're willing to take the role and darn it.

We've got someone in a franchise business coaching position for you. Right. And it's run the gamut. I've, you know, even I was just sharing earlier, like in 17 years, I've never had such a great franchise business coach. as I do now in Anytime Fitness. Now, I'm not freaking out at every little thing that happens in the clubs anymore because 17 years, um, and they, they operate well, but I still appreciate her expertise, um, her professionalism, her communication style, her knowledge, her willingness to find answers if she doesn't have answers. 

And that is not something that's happened in all franchise systems. So I think what you, the segment that you're focusing on and, um, the treatment of frontline workers and the leadership and coaching of them are two areas where franchising can really, really step up their game, the whole world, the whole industry. 

And I, I'm, I don't even know if you have a competitor cause I don't pay any attention to them, but like what you guys are doing is so important, but how did you land up? That was a really long, uh, wind up to this question. I'm so sorry, but how did you land on like This is the area that I'm going to focus on.

Yeah, that's it's, uh, it's funny because people that just, you know, meet me now and they go, Oh, you're doing this, you must have, you know, you just knew and it's like, no, no, no, it took a while to figure this out. Um, I mean, I guess when I started to go out networking and franchising, because prior to. Like my, my background, I didn't go out into the world of franchising when I was a franchisee or when I was on the franchisor side, this was new to me.

So I started going out there to these conferences, like the IFA and various conferences, and it really took a lot of conversations with people, um, listening to the panels, listening to what was missing, what wasn't missing.  My path has been, like, the beginning of AAC Inc. was Angela Cote Consulting Inc.,  and it was just me thinking, I'm just going to go be a consultant.

So, it was in working with people, I knew I could, when I would work with them, I could tell right away, I was like, well, how are you taking care of your franchisees?  And that was often just, they didn't, they just, they just had hotline support. Like just, they call us if they need us. And I, I compared that to what did we do at M& M over the years or, you know, what, yeah, what did we do?

Like what, especially on the franchise, when I was on the franchisor side and what was my dad doing to, to grow the company? You know, we won so many awards. I like to say we, my dad and the company won so many awards, you know, back in the days and for the relationships that were built between franchisee and franchisor.

And to this day, when I post on LinkedIn, anything about like my dad in those days, it's interesting to see the people that come out of the woodwork from those times and say how my dad really understood people and under, and the leadership. He was a great leader. And I say was because he sold the company about.

12 years ago to private equity. Um, but maybe even longer. But anyway, so I reflected on what did, what were we doing at M& M compared to what people aren't doing? And it was really about this relationship. And then I went, I kept looking at going, well, the person responsible for that relationship is that person in the field.

And I was in the field and I got. Tomatoes thrown at me and, you know, put through the ringer by these older male franchisees and female franchisees too. Um, and so it was like, wait a minute, there's nobody's giving. And so I reflected on my experience in the field. And then I looked at as a franchisee, Oh, like again, through conversations, it starts to become clear, but that  like you, you know, I was, I was.

I didn't need someone coming in telling me, you know, how to sell better, or, you know, I needed a business coach and the person that would come in and try to try to, um, help us would go, they would always default to compliance and they default to authority because they had nothing else for us. Cause they weren't coached and trained how to help us.

I wish they would have come in and said, you know what, like we are going to sit down and we're going to figure out your goals so that you have a good exit. And I would have been like, no, I'm good. And then they would have said, no, trust me. Here's why, like, I wish they would have held me accountable to that.

Um, so I just, it was really reflection on what I was missing conversations getting out there. Um, so really, I mean. Like I bumbled around just doing kind of general consulting and then eventually  figured out that there was a pretty big gap in the market in this area. 

Huge. Yeah. It's a huge gap. 

I've seen you speak recently in Denver. 

Oh, right. I love 

that the structure that you guys have put together for field coach training is huge. You know, the question that comes to mind, uh, just for, um, maybe emerging franchisors that are listening. Is, how does your program work? Can it be remote? Is it, is it, is there in person?

Is it just going to watch you and your team at a, at an IFA show or a franchise business review event or things like that? How does that work? 

Yeah. Well, we really have two ways that we deliver our service. So majority of it is online zoom calls. Coaching just to clarify that right up front. We do also get brought in whether it's myself or the team Depending on what people are looking for, you know, we'll get brought in in person to come to a company conference Um, if it's me, it's more like a keynote if it's more they want to workshop and training  In person, then my team will generally go do that.

But the majority of it is over zoom and the two ways that we deliver our services. One is the professional development, the education side. So, on that side, we have, we built the academy. And the academy is a whole bunch of courses, a curricula, a bunch of curriculum that people can go take, you know, like three sessions and it's, and it's on topics like how to drive motivation and accountability with franchisees.

So the coaches can take these courses as a one off and they're up to 25 people in each course. They're live online. So you're, because we're really big on the collaborative, like when we're talking coaching, if you just did like online training, you're not checking if people are understanding and getting it.

And. It's so important that they get it.  So education side is the academy. And we actually went so far as to create a certification and that's when they take all of the curriculum and there's some electives in there. And so that's called the field coach certification. And we've got about 70 or more people walking around in the franchise world, walking around as certified field coaches.

But 

congratulations.  

We like it's. It's crazy to think that we're there, that we've created this and that. It's very cool to see that people want what we created. That's a neat feeling. I'm sure you can relate with your business, right? 

Absolutely. Um, 

so, so that's the education side. Um, people did ask, franchisors asked, how can I get them certified faster?

So to get the certification, we created something called the accelerator AC. It wasn't me. The A  and the C are capital as the team's idea. So that's the whole education side and that's again courses or they can take it in a intense five month period and get certified. The other side of our delivery is  we call it fractional delivery where we can for an emerging franchise or we can go in and be the coach.

We can run performance groups with six franchisees where we're. Those are curriculum based over six months. It's not like a mastermind. It's it's teaching and then collaborating so we can deliver those or we'll go in, we're going into brands now and implementing what's called the strategic growth coaching framework, which is. 

Answers all the questions that we were getting about, like, it's an operation, the 70 or more page operations manual. Basically, it answers questions like how often to coach franchisees. How long are the sessions? What do you do in a session? How do you deal with when a franchisee doesn't show up and it's not engaged like.

All the,  the technical and soft skill side of it is in the strategic growth coaching framework. So we're going into brands, we're teaching the brand that we're getting it customized for their brand and implementing it. So education, fractional to summarize. 

All right. All right. So some of it is like, uh, the, the coach doing it on their own, obviously probably sponsored by their, their employer. 

And then the other one, the other one is like you guys coming in and actually doing the coaching, right? 

Yeah. And role modeling and ideally to work towards them doing it. But we can come in, um, to role model to their team and get it going. And then Teach them and move on or if they're just like some brands or just they're not.

Yeah, they're not ready to they might have 30 or 50 franchisees and they're realizing they're not really coaching. They're just kind of hotline support and they might just bring us in until they get that going. 

The franchise business coach is generally when someone's up and running, it's their their main connection to the franchise or and. It's shown over and over again that the, the franchisees that are more engaged with their franchisors do better. Um, it's just, it's just, it's just a fact, you know, so, and if they, if they're not, you know, getting what they need from their franchise business coach, it's, you know, you've, you've seen it a hundred times more than I have, but I've seen it franchisees that don't show up for calls or franchisees that are driving and don't have their camera on or, you know, like they're, they're multitasking.

And this is like one of it's like. This could be if it's a good franchise business coach and it's an engaged franchise, uh, franchisee, it could be the most important half hour, hour of the week for them to get direction, maybe get some blind spots shown to them that, you know, like everybody, like, You know, like when someone doesn't have a coach, I'm like, you don't have a coach.

Like, do you ever see the Olympics? Do you think anybody that goes to the Olympics doesn't have a coach? They're pretty good at what they do. 

You don't get to that point just on your own because you decide what to do. Like you need someone to see for you, like a beacon, right. And looking out and like you said, blind spots.

Yeah. And accountability to like, yeah, as the owner, I've done it myself. I've been a good franchisee and I've been a not great franchisee at times, you know, um, uh, and it's also accountability. Like, Hey,  because you, as an owner, you're like, you know, we had five units at one time, which is a lot for me. And, you know, if any times I'll spread around and, you know, I was just, Keeping my head above water, trying to keep things going, right?

And if something got put to the wayside that I said was important last Tuesday,  if I don't meet with my coach next Tuesday, it keeps on going. Whereas if I meet with my coach, they're like, Hey, you said you were going to reach out to these, you know, 50 people. Did you, did you reach out to them? I'm like, no, I didn't.

All right. All right. Let's prioritize. 

Exactly. And at that point, a good coach will say, Because, Guy, didn't you say you wanted to hit whatever goal, like,  you know, we all, one of the things that we are also, we're really big on teaching is that I, I can't believe how much it gets missed. And I, I'm not criticizing, but it's just, it gets overlooked to really make sure you understand the franchisees why.

And what their why and what drives them is kind of two different things. Like the why might be what drives them, but also on a kind of day to day basis, what is fueling them. And, and so when you say, I didn't do the 50 calls being able to say, well, you said you wanted to 10, you know, franchise, you wanted to retire at X, Y, Z age, and you wanted to do that trip around the world.

Like you're just delaying that getting to that goal by not doing those 50 calls. And now it's, that's how you drive motivation, right? And accountability, but  no one's being taught that, like coaches are not being taught that and  people are forgetting to do it. 

Going back to your compliance thing earlier, cause you know, back in the day, we were fortunate enough to have. A gal named Megan Delaney. Um, she's still at Anytime Fitness. I think she comes to 

our roundtables actually. 

Roundtables. She is a close family friend now. Um, but, um, she started Anytime Fitness when she was like 18.

She was the sales guys. She sold more anytime fitness memberships than anybody walking the planet. And you know, she's a field business coach and, um, she knows more about the system than anybody, but I didn't know better. Like when she was coming to Colorado, I'd be like, all right, like we better make sure everything's shored up in the clubs, you know, um, I don't want to get dinged on, you know, the retail wall wasn't looking good or anything like that.

And it being very shortsighted to be like. This gal has, has done more in clubs the last five years than, than I have. Like she's seen it all. And she has this, this flow of information that I don't have as a single unit owner. Like I should just sit down and listen to her. Like, this is not something to be, um, you know, avoided.

It's like, let's have a conversation. Where am I good? Where am I bad? So just one, one more, like. Pointed question on, um, not pointed in a negative way, but your field coaching education, it sounds like there's a mixture of soft skills.  And, and hard skills because there is a certain amount of hard skills.

It's like, you know, for Frenchies, we had, you know, nine KPIs that we knew if we could see that dashboard, we knew where the studio was going and how it was performing. And probably we were able to figure out what the challenges were, whether it was leadership or it was team, whether it was marketing, whatever the case may be.

So. Are you also teaching that as well? 

Yeah. So we, this again, goes back to what I, what I recognized. And as a team, we started to really recognize was that you can, you can be an expert. You can be really an expert at financials, like a financial wizard, but if you can't get the franchisee to care or to listen to you,  or they're disengaged because they're angry at the franchise or not you, maybe, but the franchise or now they're not going, it doesn't matter how smart you are in financials.

You have to understand the art of coaching and that's creating buy in and it's, it's how to let your guard down with franchisee, like, you know, it's, it's about how to show maybe some vulnerability, those kinds of things. So  majority of what we're teaching is the, the emotional and social intelligence skills, the soft skills we do incorporate, uh, you know, KPIs.

We have a course in our Academy that three session course. Of course, the whole certification, um, on like coaching to KPIs. And, you know, if you didn't, if you just heard that, you might think it was just about teaching the coach about KPIs. No, it's teaching the coach how to get a franchisee to care about their KPIs and then track them and some tips and tricks for getting them to.

You know, to follow them leading indicators versus lagging indicators and things like that. So it combines a bit of the technical with it. And we do have a few courses that are more technical on the financials and that side, but the majority of it is, is more around, you know, communication, active listening, leadership and, and things like that.

Cause that's, yeah, that's what we identified was, was what was really missing for the coaches. And I kind of feel like I should tell you the, like what we uncovered as far as like the DNA of a high performing coach.  

Yeah. Please give us that. If you're okay. Right. Like, 

don't mean 

to. Absolutely. Well, 

cause we get asked all the time, like, you know, uh, should I look for somebody that has, again, high financial.

Acumen, um, marketing wizard. Uh, they've been a franchisee or they've been, uh, worked for another franchise.  I'd say nothing. None of those are as important as these three things.  One,  they need to know and love the brand. Like, they have to, they have to know how to operate the brand like you, like you said about Megan being able to operate the units that gave the credibility, right?

Doesn't mean they have to have been a franchisee, but they have to be able to like come in and they could work in the business. They understand it. They love it.  They're there. That's easy. That one's easy.  You can usually find people that with that one. Number two is the business acumen. We call it business acumen.

Again, not an expert, but just, just being able to talk business talk, being understanding the, you know, there's marketing, there's sales, there's leadership and having some skills in all of that  to some extent.  The third one is the one that, that gets missed the most. is why AC ink exists, and that is the social and emotional intelligence side. 

And  we think of it, we teach that it's the three legged stool.  So you need all three of those if what happens with the three legged stool with one leg is missing. 

Franchisees, especially in the beginning,  are under a lot of stress, you know, and, and we know the, the cycle of franchise ownership in the beginning, the franchisor knows everything and they can do no wrong. And then a little bit further down, it's like, Oh, maybe they don't know everything, you know, and third, you know, there's a, there's a point where it's really low.

Like they don't know anything. I don't know how I did this. I'm on 

the front line. You don't, you don't understand you're up in the office. Right? 

Yeah. You're up in the, in the castle in the sky, like looking down and Someone can say one wrong thing in a phone call and that that franchisee is checked out like they're you're not a voice of on their side.

You're a voice of it's the parent child relationship in full swing. So it's really important that social and emotional side. And that's, that's not easy to teach, right? Because I've been on your, your founders calls. I love how you run your calls. Scott has really loved how you ran your calls because we I was on a founder call with you.

Um, and a bunch of people, and I was learning so much in that Scott was our franchise business coach. He's on with like 99 coaches hearing, yeah, hearing the same challenges, some from franchisees, the same accusations, the same opportunities, things like that. So he knows as a franchise business coach, okay, it's not me.

I'm not taking anything personally like this is everybody can work around this. I've learned. I know that Bob, who's a. You know, owns a cabinet company up in Calgary, shared on the call with me, you know, like this is how I did it with my, my franchisee, you know, I was like, Oh, okay, I'm going to use that. And I have to say, like, you are one of the first people I saw that ran calls really, really well.

I know this sounds weird, but, but it, but it's a really important. So in case anybody's listening and you run calls,  

round tables, if anybody's looking on our website, just if they're wondering, 

yeah, round tables, they are fantastic. And they were, they're, they're an affordable entry. 

Oh, there's three. They're free for franchise.

There's four different ones. Two are free, the franchisor ones, and then the one for the field support and the one for the franchise marketing people are right now 99 bucks a month for up to four people at each. So yeah, we try to keep it low barrier. 

Huge, like huge value for entry level and the things that we were getting out of it were just fantastic.

So if nothing else, if you're running a franchise or, or anything, um, definitely look into the round tables cause you will not be disappointed. 

That's what we also get to learn from people like we get to hear and learn. Right.  

Absolutely. But the way you run those, I just wanted to point that out is like, um, you insist that everybody's on their camera.

Like, so that you don't wonder what people are doing or anything like that. And then at the end, you make everybody do a KTA, you know, a key takeaway. Um, and, you know, I've been on other calls where they demand things like that, but not in such a nice. Kind of Canadian way, but everybody plays along with you because you asked nicely and the team asked nicely.

And, um, and it just makes it so much better. It really does make a difference. Even if there's like four screens of zoom people on there, like when you don't see someone like slurping their soup or someone driving down the road and you're getting the view of their nostril, it's like, no, this is, this is so much better. 

It definitely reduces our Ability to have more people there, right? Our attendance, but I'd rather have quality conversations with 10 people rather than 60 people that are, you know, and people say, Oh, do you record it? No, we don't because we want, if we record it, you won't show up.  

You're not going to get the same thing.

So, yeah. 

And I, I really appreciate you saying that. Cause I, I really work hard to try to make it valuable for people so that they come back. Right. If you don't make it valuable, they won't come back. But to hear that, that.  And they've been five years this March, it'll be our anniversary,  2020 because of the pandemic.

Wow. Yeah. 

Congratulations, man. Time flies. Yeah. Well, you are, uh, you're, you're kind of a big deal now, like keynote speaker going all over the country and all that before we kind of land the plane here. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? I have an idea of who it probably came from, but what's the best piece of business advice that you've, you've ever received?

Hmm. I honestly, um. There's so many things that are going through my mind on this. One, one is that there's two sides to every story.  And that really applies to that applies to franchising because it's because it's a partnership and a relationship and  as a franchisee,  if I did, like, if I didn't understand why something, you know, this, if the head office makes a decision that you don't understand, sometimes you, you, you think, well, they don't understand. 

That this is negatively impacting me and you, you get angry and on the flip side, the franchisor doesn't always realize what the franchisee is going through. So you have to, there's two sides to every story. I think that's one thing that came from my dad. Is that who you're guessing it came from?  

Totally.

I'll, I'll, I'll go with that one for now. I don't, yeah, there's so many good things I've, I've learned over the years, but that one is. 

Wow. That's a, that's a huge one. If people just heated that one, that would, that would make a difference. So thanks for sharing. It comes up a 

lot when you realize, Oh yeah, two sides.

Yeah. 

Yeah. I summed that up with, uh, I say it probably too often. Everything happens in a real conversation, you know, not a text, not an email, like two people, you know, hopefully in person, but if not, uh, you know, we have, yeah, the context is so important. So, well, this has been fantastic. I'm going to put everything in the show notes so that people can reach you and your team.

And I love what you're doing. I'm rooting for you all the time.  What you're doing is making, uh, an industry, which is franchising that much better for people and, um, giving people a shot at small business ownership in a way that's going to increase their chances of profitability and leading these great lives.

So I really appreciate what you and your team are doing. 

Thank you. And I appreciate the opportunity to get the word out here, because whether it's us or someone else helping people do this, like I agree, this is, this is what franchising, one of the things that franchising needs for sure. So thank you. I appreciate it. 

It's fun to see. It's been fun to see your success and your growth. We're going to have to get caught up about that, too. 

Yes, we definitely will. But thank you so much for your time today, Angela. I appreciate you. Thanks for tuning in to Conversations with Coffee. If you found value in today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and share it with a friend.

For more insights on entrepreneurship and leadership, follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram at Gee Coffee. Join me next time for more real talk and actionable advice to help you thrive in business and life. Until then, keep building and be sure to make today a great day