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Bob Marsden* Age: 64* Franchise: Eco Countertops USA* Business: Value-oriented kitchen and bath countertop refinishing company* Employees: 1* Start-up investment: $40,000* Previous careers: Self-employed building contractor* Words of wisdom: “It’s good to be your own boss, but you have to develop your own structure. You also need a mindset to deal with feast-or-famine cycles.”
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Steve Ruggierio* Franchise: Flying Locksmiths* Business: Door and lock company servicing individual and business customers* Employees: 2 technicians (Ruggerio partners with his wife Brandy in the business)* Start-up investment: $200,000* Previous career: Insurance sales and management* Words of wisdom: “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and so I took a personality assessment. You really need to work with somebody like (Chattanooga franchise broker) Bruce Krebs. It didn’t cost me a dime.”
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Joe Bozich* Age: 45* Franchise: Outdoor Lighting Perspectives* Business: Company designs, installs and maintains landscape, deck and pool lighting.* Employees: 4* Start-up investment: $39,000 franchise fee plus van and office equipment* Previous career: Pharmaceutical sales* Words of wisdom: “It takes more than liking one aspect of a (franchise) job to do it well. You have to like doing the book-keeping and doing the marketing and managing people, too.”
Bruce Krebs dresses in a starched shirt embroidered with his corporate logo; a vestige of his buttoned-down days as a textile company CEO negotiating deals with the likes of Nike and the National Football League. His modest office in the former Four Squares retail property off Mountain Creek Road, is chock-full of sales materials and files that always seem just a scoot-and-a-reach away.
Krebs may no longer be directing garment plants or striking multimillion-dollar licensing deals, but in some respects he is now a more important cog in the American economy. He runs a local office of the Entrepreneur’s Source, a business that matches owner/investors with small-business franchise opportunities. The Entrepreneurs Source website lists Krebs’ title as coach, but he says “matchmaker” is a more apt description.