Nate Minnis | Smalls Sliders

  📍 Hey everybody. Welcome to the Retail Navigator Podcast. I’m your host, Joseph Gozlan, and today we have Nate Minnis with Smalls Sliders. Nate, welcome to the show. Thank you much appreciate being here. Absolutely. I saw you guys at ICSC and I thought it was a really cool concept and since then I’ve actually seen a few pop up around town here in DFW. Tell us a little bit about the brand, a little bit about you and your role at Smalls.

Yeah. I’ve been here a little bit over two years now, so that’s been a lot of fun. When I started there were seven. They we actually. Are opened number 32 today in Houston, Texas. So very excited about that. We have a little over 350 sold franchise agreements, so a lot of work cut out for us. And we signed 50 leases last year.

We’re about to be on pace for another 50 this year, which is really exciting for a young growth company to be able to get out there and battle the other small footprint users in this. Environment that we live in with the retail struggles and land and everything else that we work through daily.

But yeah, smalls is a 750 square foot modular building where we have a drive through and a patio, and we sell sliders, fries, quesos, and shakes.

And the beautiful part of it is, it’s not just a premium product, but we make it fresh and made an order every single time. And actually, just quick story I had some brokers at ICSC and had tried the sliders and I asked. But they had tried the queso and they said, no, we didn’t try that. And I got an email just a couple days ago saying, please don’t come to Orlando.

We will eat all of the queso. We will probably gain a lot of weight, but it it is so delicious that we had to take even more home. It’s not just sliders, but the queso and the fries are just top notch premium products also. Awesome. And when you say 750 square feet, modular building.

That’s shipping containers, right? So the can on top is a shipping container. It’s used twice technically, one time things. And the second time is to ship our para pit and some of our signage and such in that from the modular vendor. And the actual modular building itself is not a shipping container, it is actually constructed steel and then built.

And utilities and everything run through it. That’s incredible. And you sit on what size? Lots, right? We’re looking at a third acre, a quarter acre. ’cause it, it seems to be like a trend recently to get smaller and smaller on the footprint in retail. Yeah. And we’re going the same direction.

Concrete and asphalt is just expensive today. And so we are our smallest is 0.26 acres, and I think that comes out to 11,000 square feet. But then we are really focused around that half acre or less. If we, our sweet spot, if we can get to a third of an acre to a half acre it’s a good site for us.

That’s great. And, do you so Salad to Go and Dutch Bros. Is what’s coming to mind when I’m thinking. Very small footprint. But they’re exclusively drive through. Is that the same case for you guys or do you have dine in or dine out or anything else? So we have a 800 square foot patio that.

People enjoy and we have fans out there, music. And with about 32 seats, we have the walkup, we have the drive through, we have first party delivery, and we have third party delivery. That’s awesome. And like I said, I’ve seen them around town, they squeeze in right with all the other retail. It doesn’t look cheap or anything.

The shipping container on top definitely attracts attention. And your colors are like bright orange kind of thing, right? So definitely very attractive. It’s a billboard for sure. Everyone’s do I need a monument pylon sign when I have that can, sitting up there and visible?

And the answer is yes, you still need the monument pylon. But at the same time, to your point, we really use the can on top for three things. One is screening for our. HVAC and everything up on the roof but for our signage and then for our branding, like everyone knows Smalls by the orange can.

And then of course the product just follows up with keeping everyone excited and wanting more. And I’m like, this is where my operations hat kicks in. Like we, we manage commercial real estate. And I’m thinking if I put that shipping container on the roof and the AC units are inside, everything is protected, the roof is protected.

There’s extra layer of protection on top of the building. Do you guys see that in the cost of operation, some sort of a reduction in the amount of damage that happens to the roof? We don’t, we, it’s a very small roof as it is, but we, yeah, no, it’s all about cleaning out the grease and we have not had any roof issues.

It actually was one of my concerns coming from a Mongolian concept at one point in my life where you can tell if you’re not cleaning that grease off that roof. I had a landlord that, that showed me our roof compared to the rest of the shopping center. And I was like. That’s a problem, right?

Yeah. But we, with the can’s just protecting, more wind and removing that visibility to, to the HVAC and everything in the hood system. So it’s not necessarily impacting because it’s sitting on top of the roof instead of holding it all within the can.

Got it. Okay. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What’d you do before? How’d you end up with smalls? I’ve. Franchising a little over 20 years. I started washing windows at Subway and I just kept on falling in the next opportunity with franchisees. I work on trust and work hard, and I’ve just been able to take go from operations and working on the local side into getting into the area developer side with Subway.

And then Jimmy John’s gave me the opportunity to get into the real estate and for me. I need to fly. I need to be out and about. I can’t sit and do the same thing every day. And real estate, as you probably know, is not the same thing every day. And so when the opportunity to get out of operations and complete the checklist, every 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM right?

That routine. I really jumped on that opportunity and someone, they’re like, we’re gonna pay you to travel and learn markets. I said, that sounds like a really good idea. So I took that opportunity. And so overall I’ve worked with 15 different franchises. My last company I was with, we have five different franchises that we supported and got to work through real estate design, construction.

And really, this role is quarterbacking so. Like I said a couple years ago our franchise sales vp and he and I have known each other for since I’ve gotten into the business 18 years ago in real estate side, and he’s Hey, I think you’re perfect for this role. The other part that I, I like to share out there, just because it’s.

Confirmation of my career is I, I got to work with Drew Brees on his first three, Jimmy John’s in New Orleans, and it was a real privilege to do that. And Drew is an investor into our capital group that’s investing in us. And to make it full circle right back to working with him and got and just did his second deal in Elmwood.

It’s definitely exciting. I’ve seen it from when I started at Jimmy John’s. There’s 200 locations. I grew up to 1500 with. And then I’ve worked with mature companies like Great Clips, which amazing company, love their culture. But it wasn’t very exciting. I like, I wasn’t, it wasn’t like emerging.

It was very mature and like I said, I need to get out and really. I really want to utilize my experience and be able to work with franchisees and make an impact, not just to the franchisees, but to the communities and to the staff and everyone else. So yeah, that’s why I’m, that’s why I’m here at Smalls and exciting to lead this.

And to your point I love our location. I love our booth and it’s been a lot of fun to experience, to manage that process. As I’ve been a part of it in my past I wasn’t necessarily the decision maker and the lead on it. And here I have been. So it’s been a lot of fun to be a part of new processes also because this is.

Technically my first only ground up retailer that I’ve worked with. I’ve done Jimmy John’s with buildup and such, but it was never QSR ground up like we are with smalls and modular buildings. So all new experiences here and that’s been really exciting. Yeah, that’s awesome. And yeah your booth was very popular.

It was one of the biggest icsc ever and your booth was very popular, so I’m sure you didn’t sleep much in those few days. Of ICSC, I gave over a thousand business cards, and I think we handed out over 1500 site criteria sheets and marketing flyers. So yeah, it’s been, we, it’s been really good to get the follow up.

Some, one of the con conversation pieces that we talked about in the past is key takeaways for retailers and the one thing I tell everyone is I will respond to your email as long as it doesn’t say unsubscribe at the bottom. And I think everyone should live by that.

Yes sir. When you look at your organization you guys are growing and you’re growing fast, you’re going into new markets. How do you as a young retail brand look at markets out there and decide I’m gonna go to Dallas, but not to Oklahoma City. I’m gonna go to Phoenix, but I’m not gonna go to I don’t know San Diego.

What is your thought process about selecting the next market that you’re going into? I think it comes down to time, resources, and franchise interest. Going into California right now is a beast, right? It’s just a challenging and we are one person real estate department. So from a resource standpoint, that just doesn’t make sense to, to go there.

But for Phoenix and Texas and other markets, we wanted, so our growth came from. From Baton Rouge, and on LSU campus, and we wanted to say south, we wanted to really say Southeast in the beginning, because there are a lot of metropolitan, there’s a lot of markets that we fit the criteria fits in.

And but then we get a franchise interest. And when that happens you say, okay, does this make sense? Can we do this from a RESO resource standpoint? But. Also, can we do it from a supply chain? And is this the right time to do it? And Texas we’ve we’re open or we’re. We’ve sold from Phoenix all the way over to North Carolina.

We’ve done a couple Midwest states, but we’re staying away from DC and North and West Coast. And it’s just, again, same thing. It’s, we have a lot of land to work with. We don’t need to try to get into those Metropolitans Plus, is it worth our time resource to try to get into Jersey where they’re.

Just not doing drive-throughs right now and to get through an SUP is a year from now. And with a young growth company, you’re looking to, get those royalties going and to get open locations and branding. So that’s the overall picture on how, at least in my opinion, in my experience, brands have looked at opening up new markets and how to grow that up.

Awesome. Yeah. That makes total sense, right? When you are a smaller real estate department, you can’t spread yourself too thin. And you said you do about 50, you’re planning on doing 50 this year, right? Yep. That’s a lot for a very small department being there, negotiating everything, working with contractors, working with brokers working with the franchisee.

There’s just so many moving pieces. It makes sense to niche down and focus on the close to home. And where is home base, by the way, for the company? Yeah. We moved now to Atlanta and so 10 Point Capital who supports us is also owns Walk-Ons. And so both brands are here in Atlanta.

Got it. And so when you get to a market, let’s say DFW, Austin, Houston, any one of the big markets you’re getting into, what is the strategy? Let’s say it’s the first time you’re going into this market. Do you start from the franchise? Let’s sell a franchise and have the franchisee lead the effort. Do you start with, let me find a local broker and work with them to identify their locations.

What’s the thought process? Where do you guys start when you pick up market and you go into it? Yeah. Fortunately at this point, I have a lot of that market knowledge. I’ve done multiple brands in these cities and worn different hats. And so our market plan is relatively simple for us at Smalls.

I already have the market knowledge now, if I back it up 18 years ago and I was working here at Smalls and I, they said, Hey we want to sell Austin. Do you have a market plan? The first thing I would do is, and in today’s environment is a lot different. Back when I was starting, I had paper maps. I would stop at the, gas station, get a paper map and start drawing all over it.

In today’s world, it’s a little bit different. But what, you should always market plan and something that we say a lot, I say a lot is plan the work to plan. So what is the plan? The you can’t go sell Austin without knowing how many locations you’re planning I’m putting there.

And so what I typically do is I go and with Smalls you can. Do two parts. You can somewhat do real estate from an aerial and I think you should actually, because you never know what you’re missing because it’s hitting hidden behind trees or over a hill that you didn’t go over whatever the case may be.

And when I look at an aerial for smalls, we’re really focused on dense, local and regional. Retail areas. And I say that because we know that the local residents are going to come to us, but with a single menu item of a slider with some complimentary items with it we want that regionality also.

You pick up more customers. And it’s pretty easy to see where, you, you put down your big boxes, you put down your other QSRs. We’re not focused on sitting next to a five sit down restaurants with no QSRs, right? They’re, that tells you that it’s not focused for us. And what I would do is I look at it from an aerial, I plan it out, say, Hey, here are the big boxes.

Here’s the regional areas based on all the retail. But then also you gotta look at it where the office parks, where the hospitals and such, and then you gotta get in the car and drive it. And a lot of one, one mistake that a lot of retailers don’t do they rely on a program or a third party to say, Hey, here’s your criteria.

This is where you should go. And I personally have always utilized the dollars that the company has invested in me to go become the market knowledge expert. And I always tell brokers they need to know a lot about a little, and I need to know a little about a lot. And so when I get out there, I drive, I confirm what I think and then go and run my demographics and data and such.

At the same time, I’m also looking to hire a broker and I think raising, I’ve heard raising kings to do this, and I think it’s a really good idea. I’ve done it a few times in my life and more so after I learned about it. Is they have, when they go hire a broker, they go and ask three brokerage companies here’s raising cans, build us our market plan, and then they decide who’s closest and, process it and pick their broker from after that.

And I think it’s really good, I’d like to think I know everything and I think I’m perfect at everything, but definitely not. And when if you can’t accept local brokerage knowledge, then it’s gonna be a tough job for you. ’cause you’re gonna have a lot of discrepancies. But I ask my brokers then to build their own.

We compare and then from there we start executing on finding sites. And I always think it’s important where. Your broker is there to, to work for you. But at the same time, there’s no point in my life that I can see. If I was a broker, I would demand a retailer saying. Give me the focus intersections that you want me to go to because I’ve seen too many franchise and too many retailers just say, Hey, we’re opening up in Austin, here’s what we’re thinking.

And then the brokers just go and shotgun spray and waste a ton of time providing sites that aren’t even going to qualify. Yeah. So I always think you gotta provide the broker with a plan. I train our agents the same thing, just from the other direction, right? If you don’t get everything, start asking a million questions until you get what you need, because you’re right.

If we start shotgunning and we start spreading around a ton of options, then it, it creates two things. One, it creates a frustration on the retail side of things. It’s like they don’t get it. They don’t get it right. Why are they showing me this thing? They don’t get it. There wasn’t enough communication for me to get it right.

But it creates a bad impression on the other side as if the brokerage just didn’t get the concept, didn’t get the vision and that’s just not a good place to be for either side, right? Of course, like I said, a ton of waste of time and energy and nobody likes to do that.

What is a great quality site for you guys? We talked about the size we talked about dense retail around. Are you looking for a minimum vehicles per day on the street, or are you looking for any specific demographics in terms of household income or a number of people in the household?

What is like an ideal site for you guys? Yeah we’ve. Really started to narrow in on this. We’ve explored, we’ve seen what has worked and what is good at working and then what is not working. And my number one is go where people eat beef. Like marketing’s going to go and do their job in market.

But we have California again. There we go. So if you eat beef, you’re our customer. It’s not, to me, it’s not that hard. Really, like I was saying earlier, it’s there, there are a few metrics I look at, household size. I think sliders. I, when I think of small, I get excited because I.

I’m excited to try to get, more soon to open up one by my house, but my kids love it. Kids love it in general. And what I love about it is when I’m driving through and it’s two o’clock, three o’clock and I miss lunch, but I know I’m gonna, I have a dinner to go to, I can go get. A Biggie Smalls which is the two patties slider, and that’s gonna hold me over until dinner time.

And it’s not just a meal, but it’s also a snack. In addition to that, what I love about it is like, when I was a kid and when I was. While 13 playing baseball, we always went to Pizza Hut, right? Because that’s what we had in a small town. And so we sat under the red roof and ate pizza. But what’s exciting for or smalls is like that’s the new modern.

Pizza Hut, you go get a party pack, you’re feeding 12 kids, all these sliders, and they’re just sitting outside in the patio, in their baseball uniform, having a good old time, and the parents are relaxed and ha, enjoying their meal also. So that’s the vision I have that I get all excited about because it, to me, it is a, a concept that just isn’t just one thing, it’s it’s, yes, one slider, but it’s not just one type of meal per day. And it’s not just one customer, right? And so the part that I focus on is frequency. And that’s why I said earlier, where’s the local and the regional retail density? And it’s because.

Yes it’s still a slider. It’s no different than just eating chicken, right? How many times are you gonna eat chicken trips? A a week, right? Burgers are the same thing. Where you don’t have the frequency of that customer, let’s say they, they come two times a week, and then now they’re coming one and a half times a week.

Then we need to have new customers come in. Where the retail is. Where is the office, industrial park? Where is the traffic coming through? I’m a little bit different in when talking about traffic. You may not ever hear anyone else say this, but I think traffic counts are subjective. I have seen roads that are 50,000 cars per day and no one stops.

I’ve seen 50,000 cars per day and 25,000 of them will stop and it’s all based on traffic lights and is it a wizard road and such? And so I like, yes, I’m not gonna go on a road that’s 5,000 people or 5,000 cars, but at the same time, I’m not, I if it’s 70,000 or 20,000, all I care about is am IO am I able to get those people to stop?

Is there a reason for that customer to stop their vehicle? And and then same thing on a convenience side. And having that density of residential surrounding you. Having that density of daytime population coming to you, but then also how many times is everyone coming to you from a farther out distance so that’s the ideal.

I know you’re Texas we’re opening up just north of Memorial City today, that’s our location that’s opening, and we’re opening up in Arlington on Cooper Street. You have the Walmart to the north, you have the interstate, you have daytime, you have a bunch of ball fields and soccer fields right behind us.

We’re getting the better of everything around us. That’s the ideal. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m glad you mentioned that the traffic counts, right? Because. You are right. If you don’t have actual local knowledge or like you said, get in the car and drive the location. A number is just a number. And I have seen those brokers that put a package out there and act like it’s on the interstate, 20,000, 80,000 vehicles per day.

Then you realize yeah, but the interstate is on a bridge and this thing is like not even visible from the highway. And it’s yeah, how is that traffic count even helping me? Yeah, so yeah, so local knowledge or get in the car and spend time around there is super critical. And for that matter, do you guys lean on the franchisee or do you guys do most of the work on behalf of the franchisee?

So let’s say I want a new franchise from Smalls. Do I get to pick a location and bring it to you? Or do you guys wrap it up in a boat room and say, Hey, here’s your new location. Yeah we’re an oversight model, is the way that I say that. And so oversight model is technically for the franchise agreement.

The franchisees are responsible to work. Or find a site, add a focus intersection of the market plan that I provided. And then so like when potential franchisees come in, my slide says, plan the work, work the plan. I am providing the market plan to you and what to go do. Now you’re gonna go work that plan with the broker and then I’m gonna support you along that process.

And so it technically is their responsibility. I always say though, I have a control issue. I have, I think, a matter of seven emails in my inbox right now because I always get it in and out, and I just I want, I believe that we are all more successful if we have more support from each other and with, putting myself with the brand and being able to understand what I see from numbers and such, they don’t always get to see that data, right? Because of franchising and liabilities and such. And so it’s really smart for them to utilize me and to be and so we do have a real estate acceptance process.

They still have to provide the sites to us, but every. Franchisee that I possibly can. The broker, the franchisee and myself are all in the same email, same co communication, and we’re knocking it out. Yeah. That it’s a partnership. Sounds like that. Yeah. It definitely is.

And same thing, Lois and Leases, just knowing what the numbers are, but also, you, I believe I’m really good. Compared to most on getting creative with deal points and thinking about, you said operations earlier, coming from operations, I think with an operations hat still on, I don’t have to worry about here, but like moving handicaps spots in front of your space and moving it over and doing all these little things of what is, how am I going to maximize this site for us? It is up to the franchisee for, to present sites and pursue.

Got it. Okay. So one of the interesting trends we’ve seen in QSR in the last couple of years, give or take, is all the the apps, the Uber Eats, the GrubHub, the DoorDash and we’re starting to see them consume more and more from QSR. It used to be just dining restaurants that would have a kitchen and a back door, so the door dasher can come to the back and pick it up.

And we’re now seeing a lot more on the app encouragement of, oh, you got this sushi from that restaurant. Do you want a Burger King on the way? And stuff like that. And do you guys see that in your world as well? And do you plan for it on your designs in your real estate configuration?

What is your perspective on all that? Yeah, so definitely and. We have it through our app and we have it through third party also, and we use a website that will disperse. And it like auctions it out, I guess is the right way of saying it to say, Hey, do you have a driver? Do you want to pick up this order?

And it’s been I haven’t been as involved on it as, our marketing and IT department and they crush that for us. But it’s definitely interesting to see in addition to that, it. Interesting to really for me to analyze the trade area along with the customers, along with what percentage of that is occurring.

Because you would think in dense daytime office and such, it would be a higher percentage than a residential area, but that’s not always the case. And it’s like. Why is this one doing better? Why is that one not doing better? And then to your point, yes, we in inside, we are configuring the kitchen to have a better set up for third party and or for delivery purposes.

We do we have. A separate window now that we added so we could have a order take and then a handout. And then we do add two parking spaces for delivery purposes. Got it. So it’s great ’cause you’re a young brand and you’re evolving at the same time. This trend is coming in, so you can implement that into your design.

On the go versus now a McDonald’s that’s been in Sales Park for 30 years needs to retrofit in order to support a new trend. Yeah I, and it’s not just that, it’s similar to, I was in a Jimmy John’s the other day. And they added the toasters, but they didn’t have any room. So they had two power lines coming down in the middle of the kitchen area to plug in for this.

And I’m like, are you gonna redevelop, are you gonna remodel all of these Jimmy John’s just to add this toaster in there? But yeah, no, it’s and that’s something like. Back in the day when I was doing deals for them we always did 400 amps worth of the electric because you never knew if you were going to need it.

And it was cheaper just to pay for it upfront than try to do it 10 years down the road. And now look at it, I’m pretty sure that they’re using over 200 amps at this point and probably paid off for a lot of franchisees. Yeah, you gotta be thinking of not just today, but what is the future holding for you?

Yeah. Now I totally understand what you’re talking about. When I worked for JCPenney corporate we had to do a lot of weird retrofits when we needed new technology or new setup or new point of sale or all this kinda stuff. Required a lot of thinking and out of the box, and like you said, the Jimmy Jones coming in, in the middle.

Just because you have to fit in a world that existed for 30 years without that. So with that said any other interesting trends that you guys from see from your end that are coming in, whether it is retail specific or technology wise that is driving retail? That’s a great question. I didn’t, I haven’t really thought about that.

I don’t think so. I think I think our next opportunity is. Is really just it, we just need to continue to focus on hospitality and continue to make the right fresh made to order burger, right? And let everything else work itself out. I think raising cans has done a really good job of that.

Just focus on what they do best and expand and get open. And I think that’s where we need to be with only 32 today. We can’t we can’t get too creative. With adding all services and everything else. So I think for us, it’s just focus on the operations and opening up the right locations.

Oh I’m a very big fan of tunnel vision retail, if you want to call it raisin, canes, Chick-fil-A you got those. Brands that they have three items on the menu, four items on the menu. You go to raising cane, they have four different items, but it’s all the same thing. Do you want two fingers?

It’s three fingers. Four fingers of chicken. It’s it’s the same item and a few different variations, but it’s the same item. So it’s, I call it tunnel vision retail because it’s high focus and they don’t go sideways. And it helps the brand because. You want good product and good service, everything else will follow.

That’s right. And I think that’s pretty much one of the biggest win in formulas that ever existed in retail and restaurants specifically. And we can, what’s exciting for us is we’re improving every day. We just went to Taylor Grills that clamp down. And what’s nice is someone’s coming through the drive through, you know what they’re getting.

You don’t have to guess if they’re getting. A number one through a number nine of of a different concept. That could be a salad, it could be a burger, it could be chicken, it could be whatever the case. So from an operation standpoint and deficiencies we have improved and we can even improve even more.

So that’s where we really are focused. Yeah. So let’s flip the coin a little bit and talk about challenges. What is one of the most frustrating things in your world when you have to deal with I know most of my retailers are hating to deal with parking like this. Parking has become the biggest nightmare of every retail broker in the world dealing with the cities.

What is the challenge that you guys are facing and, things that you would wish you would never have to deal with? Yeah. Because of our uniqueness, right? And our modular building is one sheet of metal and we, with that, a lot of codes don’t allow for seat metal.

And so we’re working through that a lot of times. The one thing that we. Requires that the franchisor is involved when it comes to the design construction and the pre-app meeting. I had a civil engineer get on the phone on my first pre-app meeting when I started here, and he’s oh, it’s a sea container that they sell burgers out of, and the city’s face is just all like panic attack.

And I’m like whoa. Let’s back up here a moment please. And so ever since. Myself or someone in our design construction team has led those phone calls to make sure that they are aware that it’s a modular building and in how we set up. For me it’s really it’s always interesting because opinions, right?

And I love to listen to people’s opinions. I will always listen, but unfortunately that’s not. What requires, or that’s not what is deciding if we’re able to open up our modular building with the C can on top with metal. It’s the what does the code say? And so that’s always what I say is, Hey, give me the code, let me see what we can do.

And we’ve adapted with the few, with the materials. We just won’t do brick and there are a few cities out there that we just, we won’t be able to open a smalls in today’s environment. If that changes for them, then we’re hoping to compromise. But once we get on the phone with the city and we start talking through what is really the concern?

How does this really, how do we adapt to it? And how do we partner the conversation? 99.9% of the time has led to us getting a deal done and getting through permitting. So the other one is which I never thought this would be a situation, but color. Arizona loves earth tones, and I’m like, isn’t the sun orange?

Can we consider that a, a galaxy tone? I don’t know. It’s one of those that the orange. We call it SM Orange smore is not always agreed upon in certain municipalities, and we have not strayed away from that at this point. That is our branding. And that’s something I share with the city.

It’s like y’all, this is our brand. Yeah. This is how, smalls. And it’s really tough for the cities to deny that it’s really, you’re taking away from that business. And so we’ve had to pass on a couple deals because they wouldn’t allow the smore. But in most situations, economic development people are usually assisting us through what we need to get done.

So those are, of course you have yours and you have some of the drive through menu distances and such that you have to work through, but it’s not, it. It hasn’t been that bad. It’s probably removed us from three to five deals thus far. Got it. Yeah. You would think that in the south, that Whataburger did the work for you with the orange?

You would think so, you I still remember my first red sign, McDonald’s. I still remember my first red sign Starbucks down in Florida, and I’m just like, what? I don’t know if you remember in the nineties when every city and landlord went through the red signage because it was the brightest that you could see in fog or the farthest away.

And so everyone had to have a red sign and now you rarely see them unless it’s from a building from long ago. Yep. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. I really wanna be conscious of your time. Just like a couple of questions to, to finalize. What is a common mistake you see when it comes to site selection?

Something that you’ve seen people do in the past and, oh, that’s a no-no. Emotions number one, always emotions. My, my story that I share with people is I have this franchise group here. They were supposed to go on tour with the broker. They attend sites. They looked at the first one.

Loved it. I knew the site already. It was actually in Houston. And okay, so let’s go through these. How did the tour go? And we started talking through ’em and such, and we’re talking about the first one. We just get to the number one. And I said what about this? What about that?

Like it, I wasn’t in love with it by any means, and it’s not that we wouldn’t accept site, it’s just I think we had better opportunities and I wanted to talk through and I don’t like to tell people what to do or my thoughts right away. I want them to think it through how I would think it. And so with when you put that time and investment into F franchisee on the first time, it’s going to eliminate time in the future, right?

You can save time. And so I asked a few questions and they’re like, maybe that’s not a good site anymore. And then I said, okay, what about number 10, two through 10? And they’re like we didn’t even go look at those because we didn’t, we fell in love with this one. And I’m like, oh, get in the car.

Start driving, because you need to go look at ’em. Yeah I would say emotions is definitely the number one no, not having a checklist. So I, especially younger younger. Re tenants real estate managers, associates, and such. Having a checklist, always thinking what, what are the questions that I should be asking myself every time I think, you’re not gonna remember everything at every time, but if you don’t have a checklist, but each time you go look at a new site, you’re gonna probably have a new question I think at minus, like 45 alone on the checklist items that I like to go through.

And then, like I said, plan the work plan, be prepared. I don’t necessarily, I think that that everyone is prepared for what they’re proposing with sites and such and, making sure that when you do that plan and making sure that you actually got out there if you try to do it from an aerial, and, I, I just had this happen the other day.

I hadn’t been to Bloomington, Indiana in a while and I was given the site. I said, Hey franchisees, what do you think of this? And it looked great from an ariel. Then we got there and it sat down about 75 feet. And I’m like there you go. That’s why you don’t do a job from an aerial. Yeah. Now there’s no way to replace boots on the ground.

It’s just impossible. Not in our business. That’s right. Okay. Awesome. I really appreciate your time, Nate. It’s been awesome. If people wanna reach out, check in with you, ask a question, get ahold of maybe they want to get a new franchise from Smalls how can they find you? Yeah, nate.minnis@smallssliders.com. That’s four s’s. A lot of people don’t put the s on the smalls side of things, but that, or you can reach me at realestate@smallssliders.com also. And then I’m also on ICSC on LinkedIn, and happy to talk and look at sites and whatever the case may be.

Sounds great. Awesome. Thank you so much Nate. And for you, the audience, if you wanna listen to more of these great podcasts with great professionals like Nate just tune-in, and subscribe. We’re on YouTube we’re on Stitches, iCloud, apple podcasts, anywhere you can consume a podcast we’re there.

And until next time, thank you so much. Thank you all.