Franchising isn't an exit strategy—it's a full-time job with Shawn Saraga | 067

What does it truly take to turn a successful restaurant into a scalable franchise? In this episode, D.J. sits down with Shawn Saraga, a franchise development expert who has been involved in opening nearly 1,000 franchise locations. Shawn shares his journey from nightclub DJ to franchise guru and dives deep into the realities of restaurant expansion. He explains why franchising is not an exit strategy but an entirely new business that requires immense dedication. Listeners will learn the critical systems and benchmarks a restaurant must have in place before franchising, the "devil in the details" of standardizing your secret sauce, and, most importantly, the non-teachable personality trait to look for in a potential franchisee: persistence.

Key Takeaways

• Prove the Model First: Before you even consider franchising, you need a replicable model. This means having at least two or three successful locations to prove the concept works beyond your direct, daily involvement.
• Franchising is a New Job, Not an Exit: Thinking of franchising as a way to step back is a mistake. It’s an entirely new, full-time role focused on recruiting, real estate, operations, and support. You are no longer just an operator; you are a "king maker."
• Systemize Your Intangibles: The "little things" that make your restaurant special—like your networking style or community involvement—must be documented and turned into a trainable system for your franchisees to follow.
• Location is Non-Negotiable: As Shawn says, "50 feet from great is not great." You cannot afford to compromise on real estate. Diligent, multi-day scouting and research of a location is critical before signing a long-term lease.
• Hire for Persistence: You can teach someone how to make your food, but you can't teach them the grit to get through the hard days. Persistence is the single most important personality trait of a successful franchisee.

Resources

• The Franchise Academy: Learn more about Shawn and his consulting services at thefranchiseacademy.ca.
• Upcoming Book: Keep an eye out for Shawn's book, How to Choose the Right Franchise for You, releasing in early 2026.

📲 Connect with D.J.
DJ's Email
Follow on LinkedIn

More 7shifts
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts
Subscribe to Food Runner, our Monthly Restaurant Newsletter
7shifts on YouTube
Follow us on TikTok
Read the 7shifts Blog

About Us
7shifts is a scheduling, payroll, and employee retention app designed to help restaurants thrive. With an easy-to-use app and industry-specific solutions, 7shifts saves time, reduces errors, and helps keep costs in check for more than 50,000 restaurants.

Transcript

# Shawn Saraga Preshift

[00:00:00] **D.J. Costantino:** Hey, and welcome back to the Pre-Shift Podcast presented by Seven Shifts. I'm DJ your host. Today we're joined by a guest who truly understands what it takes to scale a successful restaurant concept. Sean Saga has helped open nearly a thousand franchise locations across the restaurant sector and beyond.

[00:00:19] **D.J. Costantino:** In this conversation, Sean breaks down the essentials for any restaurateur. Thinking about franchising, you get into what you need to have in place before you start. Why franchising is more like a marriage than an exit strategy and [00:00:30] personality traits he believes are critical for a successful franchisee.

[00:00:34] **D.J. Costantino:** Let's get into it.

[00:00:37] **D.J. Costantino:** Thanks for hopping on and joining us today. Uh, my pleasure. I wanna dive right. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Yeah. I wanna dive right in. So, you know, you've helped open nearly a thousand franchises, restaurants, and, you know, not restaurants. So I'm really curious, how did you get into franchising as a career?

[00:00:52] **D.J. Costantino:** How did I get into it? Oh, wow. I got into it by accident. 

[00:00:55] **Shawn Saraga:** My misspent youth was as a DJ in downtown Toronto. Okay. At nightclubs and also [00:01:00] doing weddings in bar mitzvahs on the weekends. Sometimes in my twenties. My dad and I built up a small chain of printing companies. We sold those, and in my early thirties, I had a marketing company.

[00:01:12] **Shawn Saraga:** A lot of my clients wound up being franchisors, and they asked me after designing their franchise brochures. If I could help them with some franchise sales, which I did and seemed to have a knack for it, and they kept giving me more opportunities. And then I think it was probably by around my fifth or sixth transaction, I saw [00:01:30] that real estate was probably an even bigger part of the opportunity, and I went out and got my real estate license to actually protect a deal that was going sideways on a franchisee that I had recruited.

[00:01:44] **Shawn Saraga:** Happened was I recruited a franchisee and I was told to hand them over to the real estate team and the guy called me up two weeks later saying, we're canceling the deal. And I said, why? He says, well, you're a real estate guy. Keeps showing me stuff that's two hours away from where I live. So I called the president, the company, I [00:02:00] said, call off your guy.

[00:02:01] **Shawn Saraga:** I'll find the site. He said, don't you need a real estate license for that? He said, the day the deal's done, I'll have my license. Don't worry. I signed up for my license, did an accelerated program, and sure enough, within six months had the site. Uh, it was combining real estate and franchising, which I looked around and nobody else was doing, and to my knowledge today, very few people are, which is surprising to me still because you can't have a location without a franchisee and you can't have a franchisee without a location.

[00:02:29] **Shawn Saraga:** [00:02:30] So to me, this was a natural fit over the course of my career. I first started out with my company, Mr. Franchise, which was a consulting company. We peaked at at around seven different brands that we were running, then converted into a real estate industry, sold into a real estate brokerage, currently involved with Tahini and helping them grow very aggressively, as well as my consulting business, the franchise Academy that helps new and emerging franchise brands grow.

[00:02:55] **Shawn Saraga:** Evolve. We invest in different new and emerging brands and watching them [00:03:00] grow very strongly and teaching the owners and operators about our expansion strategies. I'm also involved in a number of accelerator programs and my first book comes out in the fall called How to Choose the Right Franchise for You.

[00:03:12] **D.J. Costantino:** Awesome. Well that is complex, so I stay busy. Yeah, sounds like it. And so today really working, you know, on the book and Franchise Academy and you said Tahini is, is that the main focus right now for you? I 

[00:03:23] **Shawn Saraga:** would say Tahini takes up the lion's share of my time right now. Although the other brands that I work with are definitely growing concerns.

[00:03:29] **D.J. Costantino:** So [00:03:30] keeping the focus kind of on restaurants, you know, for those who are listening and maybe they want to start thinking about franchising their business, they have a successful restaurant member. Maybe it's a number of restaurants and a solid concept.

[00:03:43] **D.J. Costantino:** So, you know, what is the main thing that a restaurant owner in particular needs to have in place before even starting to think about franchising from your perspective? That's a great question. 

[00:03:55] **Shawn Saraga:** In my opinion, when you're a restaurant owner and you're starting to think about franchising, [00:04:00] one of the things that absolutely has to be in place is you have to have it proven as a replicable model.

[00:04:06] **Shawn Saraga:** You have to have more than one location. You have to show that you can do this trick over at least two or three times. You have to have your operations manuals in place. You have to systemize things. You have to know that you've got systems ready and. Have a good idea of what your secret sauce is, and your secret sauce isn't just your product, it is also your ownership style, your management style, the structure, the [00:04:30] culture that you're building in your company.

[00:04:31] **Shawn Saraga:** I always say success is really easy. Just do everything right, but what it takes to do everything right is a list longer than you know, my entire backyard. It takes a lot to do everything right and you don't always know what's right and what's wrong as far as the choices. I'd also say don't be afraid to fail.

[00:04:49] **Shawn Saraga:** Don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's okay to take chances, but it's very tough to take chances with other people's money. And when you're a franchisor, don't take chances with other people's money. [00:05:00] Make those decisions educated and well-informed. You take chances on your own stores. You take chances on what works for you and what doesn't work for you.

[00:05:07] **Shawn Saraga:** But try not to take chances with other people's money. There is a level of accountability. You are no longer the king of the castle. You are now the king maker or queen maker, depending on obviously what pronouns you choose to use. 

[00:05:21] **D.J. Costantino:** Sure, absolutely. And so something you mentioned on one of your talks, you know, as a franchising is more of a marriage.

[00:05:26] **D.J. Costantino:** It's not like a way to sell and, and kind of step back and. [00:05:30] It's not a way out. Can you elaborate on that, what you mean by that? You know, what that means for the relationship between, you know, maybe the original owner and, and the franchisor, and just speak to that a little bit. So I gotta say, if you're thinking of franchising 

[00:05:41] **Shawn Saraga:** as an exit strategy, you're looking at it the wrong way.

[00:05:44] **Shawn Saraga:** Franchising is not an exit strategy. Franchising is taking on another full-time job in addition to the one you currently have running your business. Franchising is a completely different business, different model. You are now in the business of recruiting franchisees. You're in the business of finding great [00:06:00] real estate.

[00:06:00] **Shawn Saraga:** You're in the business of setting up operations, making sure that your, your stores are running properly, holding people accountable and working with people that are there to believe in your dream and your objection, your objectives, and believe in what it is that you are trying to create. They're expecting you to believe in them as well.

[00:06:18] **Shawn Saraga:** Right. They're, they're bringing the blood, sweat, and tears every day, and that's what you're looking for from them, is the hard work and the diligence and the effort that it takes to build up your brand. It's the weirdest [00:06:30] business in the world, right? People pay us to work for us. That's what being a franchisor means, and how you're getting those people motivated every day and keeping them motivated.

[00:06:39] **Shawn Saraga:** Takes leadership, takes inspiration, takes dedication, hard work, and comp and, and passion. At the end of the day, in my opinion, you need to lead by example. If you are running your corporate stores poorly, don't expect your franchisees to outperform your stores. It's not gonna happen. A franchisee on their best day, [00:07:00] on their best day is capable of accomplishing what the franchisor accomplishes.

[00:07:05] **Shawn Saraga:** 50 on their best days, capable of accomplishing 50% of what the franchisor accomplishes on an average day. So if you recognize that everybody that you're bringing on board cut in half what you are capable of doing and make that your expectation and put the systems and support in place to make sure that that compensates for the half that's missing.

[00:07:27] **Shawn Saraga:** You'll have a recipe for, for a [00:07:30] po, for a probable success. But if you expect them to step up and work just as hard as you are to build their business, well, you're kidding yourself. That's not why they're buying a franchise. They wanna buy a proven track record of success. They wanna follow that beaten path.

[00:07:45] **Shawn Saraga:** They believe in you and your product and they don't know what it took you to get to where you are. All they know is they're showing up, paying royalty and ad fund, believing in you on a location, believing in you, in a menu offering, and are expecting you to tell them what to do to get the rest of the way there.[00:08:00] 

[00:08:00] **D.J. Costantino:** It's interesting to, to see that there's that much disparity between, you know, corporate owned and, and the franchise owned. Have you ever seen the case where the franchisees do outperform corporate stores or is it never really. So my philosophy in life is 

[00:08:13] **Shawn Saraga:** this, out of every group of a hundred people, 10 to 20% that are leaders, 70% that are followers.

[00:08:21] **Shawn Saraga:** And another 10 to 20% that don't even belong in the room. The majority of people in this world, being the the followers, means that those are the people that you need to [00:08:30] put the infrastructure and support in place. For the 10 to 20% that are those leaders, those are gonna be your star performers. Hmm. But not everybody can be a star performer.

[00:08:39] **Shawn Saraga:** It's first off, statistically impossible, and also, more importantly, very difficult to manage. Your star performers also come with something that is very valuable to them, valuable to you, but very difficult at the same time. And what they come with is one word, opinions, and they have lots of them on everything you're [00:09:00] doing.

[00:09:00] **Shawn Saraga:** And the more opinions they have on everything that you're doing, especially the better the performer, the more you have to listen and take them seriously because they have the street credibility to buy in and to make changes within your organization. At the end of the day, if you have a hundred top performers and you're dealing with a hundred opinions on a daily basis, it's gonna be a very difficult system to manage.

[00:09:21] **D.J. Costantino:** That makes sense. I'm just curious, it's so interesting to hear, you know, how much of a difference that there can be. You know, I wanna talk about some of the kind of pitfalls, you know, you talk about like the [00:09:30] little things that founders do without even thinking about it. What are the challenges in, in systemizing those little things that they do?

[00:09:36] **D.J. Costantino:** Why does it matter and, and how do you go about getting those things, you know, standardized. I 

[00:09:42] **Shawn Saraga:** dunno if you ever heard the expression, the devil is in the details, but the devil is in the details. And you know, the more attention you pay to the details and the little things that make the big difference, the greater your chance of success are.

[00:09:55] **Shawn Saraga:** It really is a matter of paying attention to the little things. When you are ready [00:10:00] to systemize your business and you bring in someone's regular operations manuals, you want someone that's going to be in your business for probably a good. Six to 12 weeks observing everything that's going on and finding those little things that you take for granted every day that you do because they're an innately a part of your personality and put them into writing into a training format that you can explain to other people how to do.

[00:10:25] **Shawn Saraga:** One of the best examples I can give of this is networking, right? [00:10:30] Networking is going out and meeting people. And for restaurant owners, networking is mission critical. Right. If you are not personable and friendly, what are you doing in the hospitality industry? You have to be able to get out there and sponsor sports teams, join the Chamber of Commerce, get involved in the community, support, the mayor's golf tournament, the Chamber of Commerce, fundraisers and things like that.

[00:10:55] **Shawn Saraga:** But just writing a check isn't enough. You need to show up and meet people. [00:11:00] After all, people visit a restaurant five times more often when they know the owner than when they don't. If you have those personable skills and aren't afraid to meet new people, you can do extremely well in this industry. But if you are a wallflower and shy and like to stay within the four walls of your business all day and just hope that the sign on your store is gonna be enough to drive traffic, my friend, you are sadly mistaken on what it takes to succeed in this industry.

[00:11:26] **Shawn Saraga:** And how do you systemize something like that? You know, I, I really believe training and [00:11:30] culture. Training and culture are, are two of the driving forces. If you create a culture within your company of people being friendly with each other, talking to each other, supporting each other, going out to events together, and foster the, the, the culture that everybody in this company wants to meet you, they just don't know it yet.

[00:11:49] **Shawn Saraga:** Just like everybody in a networking event wants to meet you, they just don't know it yet. If you can internalize that as a belief system within your culture. Your team and your franchisees and your staff will [00:12:00] only benefit tremendously. The greatest skillset that I think is eroding today, and I, and I say this as a reflection of a father of two teenage daughters and seeing what their friends do, is that people just aren't able to talk to people at the same rate anymore.

[00:12:14] **Shawn Saraga:** As when I was growing up, human interaction is dropped dramatically, and having the courage and ability to interact with other people sets you apart more today than it ever has before. It is such an easy thing to do that leads to such great success, at [00:12:30] least for me. But that's me. At the end of the day, someone has to be comfortable doing that.

[00:12:35] **Shawn Saraga:** If you're not comfortable doing it, get outta your comfort zone and get comfortable doing it. 

[00:12:39] **D.J. Costantino:** Yeah, and it's like, I guess the, the thing about systemizing, you know, networking and culture, is it like a standardizing, you know, we're gonna sponsor, we sponsor local sports teams. That's just part of our youth sports teams that's part of our standard operation, or, so I'll give an example, right?

[00:12:53] **D.J. Costantino:** A tahini, 

[00:12:54] **Shawn Saraga:** it's mandatory for every franchisee to join the Chamber of Commerce and attend events. [00:13:00] And it's mandatory for e every single store to sponsor a minimum of 10 sports teams. Well, they have to go out and find those sports teams, the captains, the managers of the sports teams talk to the conveners and so on, and we give them training on what it takes to do it.

[00:13:14] **Shawn Saraga:** And if worse comes to worse, they need help, our, our regional managers will go out with them to actually do this. And, and, and, and I will tell you every time I've done this personally, and I've done this personally with a few of our franchisees for the first hour to hour and a half, I'm the one doing all the talking, [00:13:30] but within about an hour and a half to two hours in.

[00:13:32] **Shawn Saraga:** They start chirping in and start doing their own introductions and talking, and by around two and a half to three hours, they're like, why don't you go sit in the food court? We got this covered. Because everything's scary until you do it the first time. 

[00:13:44] **D.J. Costantino:** Yep. 

[00:13:45] **Shawn Saraga:** And the second time and the third time. It gets less scary every time after that.

[00:13:49] **D.J. Costantino:** Here's a little bit here, you know, we talked about networking and, and that being an example of one of those little things and the, you know, things like you said, the secret sauce. What are some of the telltale signs? Maybe someone's [00:14:00] trying to franchise too early or they're just not ready in general to make that leap.

[00:14:04] **Shawn Saraga:** I would say one, I if, if you're not sure that it's the time to franchise, it's probably not the time to franchise, right? You've gotta be, you've gotta be ready, you've gotta know what you're getting into. You've gotta have the the vision, you've gotta have the stomach for it too, right? At the end of the day, if you're granting franchisees to franchisees and they're not successful, they're gonna be coming to you hand in hand asking for royalty relief.[00:14:30] 

[00:14:30] **Shawn Saraga:** They're gonna be saying, listen, man, I invested my life savings in you and I'm not sure that it's gonna work. What can you do to help me? You gotta have that strong stomach to be able to take that on. 

[00:14:39] **D.J. Costantino:** Yeah. 

[00:14:39] **Shawn Saraga:** And make sure that you do. Otherwise, you know, there, there's no point in doing this because there are gonna be good days, but there's also gonna be bad days.

[00:14:45] **Shawn Saraga:** I don't know if there's a telltale sign that someone's franchising too early, because as long as you set up the systems in place to support your store and you've got that proven track record of success, then likely. But I, I would say if [00:15:00] there's a telltale sign you're franchising too early, it's probably.

[00:15:03] **Shawn Saraga:** Your, your second and third store haven't been open for a year yet. You got ahead of your skis. You started to drink the Kool-Aid of everybody that was knocking on your door saying, Hey, I wanna buy a franchise. And people believing in you and wanting to give you their life savings. And it, it's intoxicating.

[00:15:18] **Shawn Saraga:** You gotta take your time, make sure that you know what you're doing. Make sure that you got your stuff ready. Otherwise don't, don't show up and do it. It's, you're, you're, you're just gonna disappoint everybody. 

[00:15:28] **D.J. Costantino:** Is it more frequent that [00:15:30] somebody who owns a successful couple businesses and they have their stuff in order, you know, goes to find an investor?

[00:15:36] **D.J. Costantino:** Or is it more frequent that someone like yourself or an investor comes to you, they notice, you know, a new business that's been popping off or an established business and they want in, what, what's kind of, what happens more frequently from your perspective? 

[00:15:49] **Shawn Saraga:** Listen, I, I think the real success stories are when a business is popping off on its own.

[00:15:54] **Shawn Saraga:** Yep. And they keep getting calls from their customers. Saying, I love your product. I wanna buy [00:16:00] a franchise and bring this back to my community. Right? That, that's your, that's your true sign of success if you have to go out there. If you're doing below average sales for your industry segment and you think that the only way to save your business is to franchise, please, God, don't, don't ever do that.

[00:16:18] **Shawn Saraga:** Um, you are setting yourself and other people up for failure. You're now dragging other people down with your problems. It's a cruel way to, to treat people, in my opinion. No, I would say, if anything, just focus [00:16:30] on finding those concepts that have the lineup at the door, right? If there's no lineup at the door and there aren't people knocking on the, knocking on the owner's door saying, Hey, I want to franchise.

[00:16:41] **Shawn Saraga:** Why are you franchising? 

[00:16:43] **D.J. Costantino:** That makes sense. Wait for, this is kind of like if you build it, you know they will come kind of philosophy. Maybe. Not necessarily. You have to. I wouldn't go. If you 

[00:16:50] **Shawn Saraga:** build it, they will come. I think if you build it, they will come as such a misleading statement. 

[00:16:54] **D.J. Costantino:** Yep. 

[00:16:54] **Shawn Saraga:** I would go more with success attracts success.

[00:16:57] **Shawn Saraga:** Okay. Right. That's better. If you have a successful concept, [00:17:00] the lineup at your door will tell you that. If you don't have a successful concept, people not lining up outside your door tells you that just as much. And listen, some franchises have been built. On, on, on failures and, and they've done quite well for themselves.

[00:17:16] **Shawn Saraga:** Where, you know, they started out with a first store, a honeymoon period. They were doing well. As soon as the honeymoon period dropped, they opened their second store. And when that honeymoon period dropped, they sold their, their first store as a franchise. And they continue to grow ever since. And there's [00:17:30] a number of very successful concepts that did the business that way.

[00:17:33] **Shawn Saraga:** I personally, dj mm-hmm. Don't wanna be a part of those companies. Sure. 'cause I don't see them as sustainable. My definition of success is really simple. Help a franchisee make enough money to buy a second store. Okay. If I'm not doing that, I'm not doing what I'm here to do. That makes sense. 

[00:17:51] **D.J. Costantino:** Unless you're Chick-fil-A and you only allow people to own one franchise.

[00:17:54] **D.J. Costantino:** But I think for the most part, they might be the only one that's Well, that 

[00:17:57] **Shawn Saraga:** that's a, that's different. That's a business model decision. [00:18:00] Right. But I will tell you, every Chick-fil-A store owner Yep. Has made enough money to buy a second store if given the opportunity. That is, that is ultimately their goal is bottom line profitability.

[00:18:10] **Shawn Saraga:** And that's what I'm saying, without saying it that way, 

[00:18:12] **D.J. Costantino:** 15 years, you know, we talked about kind of, you know, what makes you attractive from the investor side to franchisee side. You know, I know real estate is a huge, huge, huge piece for you. You mentioned in one of your talks, 50 feet from great is not great.

[00:18:25] **D.J. Costantino:** So what do restaurants get wrong about location, assuming that that's 

[00:18:28] **Shawn Saraga:** the most, most important thing. Oh my god, [00:18:30] so many things. When you're doing relocation, you can't do enough research. You gotta scout the location. You gotta sit in the parking lot for at least two or three days, not one hour, not, you know, don't show up on a Tuesday at three o'clock and say, oh, it's a great location.

[00:18:43] **Shawn Saraga:** Yeah, no, don't, don't make a 20 year decision based on your one hour on a Tuesday afternoon. Yep. Do your due diligence. Speak to the owners in the area. Ask 'em how other sales are doing. You know, verify that you've got the street front visibility. Make sure what your build out cost falls in line with what your expectations are.

[00:18:59] **Shawn Saraga:** Make [00:19:00] sure so that there aren't any surprises. Right, especially in the restaurant industry, do if you need any izer, that's an extra eight 60 to 80 grand on top of your normal build out cost. Don't. Also, I would say you can't afford to buy cheap, right? Don't go in with the idea that you're, that you're coming in with nothing but used equipment.

[00:19:17] **Shawn Saraga:** There are so many mistakes restaurant owners make all the time. Do I need a patio? Is a patio an important part of my business? Well, if you're opening up a business in Canada, is it because you're only using it for three months of the year? Yep. It, it's very [00:19:30] pretty. It looks good and all that stuff. But for the three months outta the year that you're using it for, is it worth paying the premium in some cases?

[00:19:36] **Shawn Saraga:** In some cases it may be depending on your, on your model, and also understand your model and what works. Understand where your audience is coming from. Do the demographics, make sure you're taking a look at what it takes to have the absolute best location. Nothing should matter more than the location, so nothing matters 

[00:19:54] **D.J. Costantino:** more than location.

[00:19:55] **D.J. Costantino:** Beyond that, um, what are the certain things you should be looking for? You know, when [00:20:00] you're deciding who the first franchisee. If you're, if you're looking to expand, you know, through franchising, you know, what's that first, what do you need to get right the first 

[00:20:08] **Shawn Saraga:** time? So your first franchisee has to be a true believer, right?

[00:20:12] **Shawn Saraga:** They have to be a brand ambassador. It, it can't be someone that's just thinking about doing this and you know, it might be a side gig or they might have a management team come in and run it. They have to be dedicated operators, they have to be invested, they have to wanna carry that level of success. And you really need to figure out [00:20:30] what it is that's made you successful.

[00:20:31] **Shawn Saraga:** The little things that make a big difference that you want them to emulate and invest very heavily in that training. You can't spend enough time with your first one to five franchisees. Making sure they're training up to speed so they've got the strength of character to be able to carry this through.

[00:20:47] **D.J. Costantino:** Excellent. And what are the, you know, brand ambassador? Are there any signs? Is it just action? I'm thinking like, are there signs that someone would be a good one or is it really just, you know, they're already doing it or you know they have, you know, what are those intangibles you're looking for? [00:21:00] 

[00:21:00] **Shawn Saraga:** It's a great question.

[00:21:01] **Shawn Saraga:** So for me, I'm a firm believer that persistence is the mother of all skills. So there is nothing more important in a personality trait of a successful owner operator than persistence. Persistence is everything. So I look for that personality trait. I can teach someone how to make swarm. I can teach someone how to flip burgers.

[00:21:21] **Shawn Saraga:** What I can't teach them is the basic personality of not giving up every day. 'cause business is tough. There's gonna be hard days, and there's gonna be easy days. And if you [00:21:30] don't have the wherewithal to get through the hard days. You're never gonna make it through to an easy one. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:21:35] **Shawn Saraga:** Something, you know, we've talked 

[00:21:36] **D.J. Costantino:** about, you know, in our content before, and Danny Meyer is a big proponent of like, you know, your now your iq, but your hq. Like, what's your hospitality quotient? What's your national pro proclivity to be a hospitable person? And you know, I think it ties into that persistence as well.

[00:21:51] **D.J. Costantino:** It's just, you know, it's, it's intent. Qualities have nothing to do with owning a restaurant or owning a business. It, it's just who you are. And I think it's amplified through when you [00:22:00] have to do it for other people. 

[00:22:01] **Shawn Saraga:** Absolutely, and I will say landlords are getting more scrutinizing about looking for tenants that have rest past restaurant experience before renting the ability to open their restaurants.

[00:22:10] **Shawn Saraga:** Sure. I would encourage them to reevaluate that and look for business acumen experiences that can help people run a successful business and own a restaurant. It's not so much the hard skills of, again, flipping burgers or shaving shawarma as much as it is the soft skills of people management.

[00:22:26] **Shawn Saraga:** Persistence and, uh, the ability to do local store [00:22:30] marketing, to be able to get out there in the community, sponsor sports teams, join the Chamber of Commerce, and really grow the business. That, Sean, you've given us 

[00:22:37] **D.J. Costantino:** a lot of amazing advice for free here, but I know you have a book coming out and we're excited to chat about that.

[00:22:42] **D.J. Costantino:** Tell me a little bit, bit why you decided to write a book, you know, and then, you know, talk about what's in the book and, and when it's coming out and, and that 

[00:22:48] **Shawn Saraga:** experience. Sure. Well, the book probably won't be out until January at this point. It's called How to Choose the Right Franchise for You. We are just finalizing the US and American Edits because we're two different countries with two different [00:23:00] laws, two different banking systems, and it's gonna help people that are looking to invest in franchises choose the right franchise for them.

[00:23:06] **Shawn Saraga:** You know, I will say for myself, if you do wanna get in touch with me and learn more about me and what I do. Visit my website, the franchise academy.ca. I am available for a free 30 minute consultation to anybody who wants one. You can book them right off my website, and then after that, my consulting services can kick in if we find that there's something that needs to be done here.

[00:23:25] **Shawn Saraga:** But I am basically a back pocket chief development officer with the [00:23:30] experience of over 20 years in the industry and having opened over a thousand franchises and hyper growing them and helping them get to eight and nine figure successful exits. I'm just curious, what 

[00:23:40] **D.J. Costantino:** was the, the most surprising experience you've had in writing the book when, you know, when you sat down to, to work on it, or like, what did you learn about yourself or about what you've done?

[00:23:49] **D.J. Costantino:** What was that experience like? 

[00:23:51] **Shawn Saraga:** I'd say, you know, writing a book's a very interesting experience. It's, it's, it's very inner journey to discover, you know, the life, the, the, the [00:24:00] body of work that I've accomplished over my career and take a look at what's worked and what hasn't worked. You know, to date, I've had a pretty high success rate with the franchisees that I've opened, much higher than the average.

[00:24:13] **Shawn Saraga:** As a result, taking a look and speaking with past operators that I've set up for business and seeing what it was about our onboarding process that they took with them that still serve them today, and taking great pride in looking back on, on a body of accomplishments that that made a [00:24:30] significant impact in a lot of lives.

[00:24:32] **Shawn Saraga:** That's 

[00:24:32] **D.J. Costantino:** awesome. It's exciting. Um, we'll be sure to let folks know when the book is out, but I think this is an awesome preview and, and just a little taste of, of your experience and, and what you can offer and, and help folks do when they're looking to either franchise their business or their franchisee.

[00:24:45] **D.J. Costantino:** So Sean, I just wanna say thank you for coming on this show, um, and sharing the expertise for their audience. My pleasure. Thanks for the time. Awesome. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Pre-Shift Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave a [00:25:00] review and share with one of your friends to help the show grow.

[00:25:02] **D.J. Costantino:** We could not do it without your support. As always, I would love to hear what you think. You can email me at vj@sevenshifts.com. I look forward to hearing from you. Until next time.