page title icon Nick Friedman

Nick Friedman of College Hunks Hauling Junk

203: Nick Friedman: I wasn’t going it alone

Nick Friedman Show Notes Page

Nick Friedman started to franchise his company, College Hunks Hauling Junk in 2008, and then the economy collapsed. Nick and his partner struggled to move on. Then he found the confidence to keep going through a peer community of other leaders battling the same challenges.

Nick Friedman was born and raised in Washington, D.C. along with his older sister Allison. His parents are still married. His mom is a retired school teacher, and his Dad is a retired Ophthalmologist.

Nick was always taught to study hard so he could get good grades, get into a good school and get a degree to get a good job. However, he was never suited for that traditional path. He was an avid athlete in school and often got into trouble with teachers by speaking out of turn. He met his now business partner, Omar Soliman in 10th grade during detention.

The summer before his senior year of college, Nick was home for summer vacation where he had an internship at the International Monetary Fund. That’s when his friend Omar approached him with a beat-up cargo van and an idea to make money by moving people’s furniture and hauling away their unwanted items. They ended up calling themselves College Hunks Hauling Junk.

They wrote a business plan their senior year of college, which won an entrepreneurship competition. Upon graduating, they briefly had corporate jobs, which they quit to begin hauling junk full time.

Nick Friedman is now the President and Co-Founder of College H.U.N.K.S. Hauling Junk & Moving, the largest and fastest growing junk removal and local moving franchise opportunity in North America. And the co-author of the bestselling book, Effortless Entrepreneur: Work Smart, Play Hard, Make Millions.

He has been named among the Top 30 Entrepreneurs in America Under 30 by INC Magazine and was named on the same list as Mark Zuckerberg as one of the 30 Most Influential CEO’s Under 30. Nick is a three-time Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Finalist and the recipient of the prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year 2018.

He has been featured in numerous business books and textbooks, as well as Forbes, Fortune and many other national publications. Nick’s company has appeared every year on the INC 5000 list of Fastest Growing US Companies, and has appeared twice on the Oprah Winfrey Show and has appeared on the first episode of ABC’s Shark Tank, Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker, and CNBC’s BlueCollar Millionaires. He is also a Board Member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO).

Nick currently lives in lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife Jennifer and two daughters Elena and Calloway.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @NickFriedman1 to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“It’s what we built our business on, the client experience and team member experience, it’s been by design.” – Click to Tweet 

“Each individual in the company is the brand.” – Click to Tweet 

“The product our clients are buying are our people and the experience they have with those individuals.” – Click to Tweet 

“We really have the opportunity to remove people’s stress when we provide a memorable experience.” – Click to Tweet 

“You have to empower your team members to make decisions as if they own the company.” – Click to Tweet 

“Be a proud representation of the brand at all times.” – Click to Tweet 

“Don’t chase the money, chase the vision.” – Click to Tweet 

“Those financial rewards don’t happen nearly as fast as you wish they would.” – Click to Tweet 

“If you’re focused strictly on the number, you’re not going to get the same level of fulfillment or results.” – Click to Tweet 

“No overnight success happens overnight.” – Click to Tweet 

“Impatience is something you really have to tame because it can create tumultuous suffering.” – Click to Tweet 

“Being in a peer group of other leaders gave me the confidence.” – Click to Tweet 

“Leadership is all about being an inspirational leader, not being a dictatorial leader.” – Click to Tweet 

“Inspire others with the vision of where you’re going, don’t try to instruct them or direct them on how to get there.” – Click to Tweet

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Hump to Get Over

Nick Friedman started to franchise his company, College Hunks Hauling Junk in 2008, and then the economy collapsed. Nick and his partner struggled to move on. Then he found the confidence to keep going through a peer community of other leaders battling the same challenges.

Advice for others

Be patient. Just know that life is going to work out and life is long.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Focus. I get distracted too easily distracted by new opportunities.

Best Leadership Advice

Leadership is all about being an inspirational leader, not being a dictatorial leader.

Secret to Success

Eating healthy and getting plenty of sleep and not taking life too seriously so you don’t get too stressed out.

Best tools in business or life

My iPhone is one of my favorite tools. The minute I have a thought in my head, I put it in my iPhone.

Recommended Reading

Effortless Entrepreneur: Work Smart, Play Hard, Make Millions

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Contacting Nick Friedman

Website: https://nickfriedman.com

Website: https://collegehunksfranchise.com

Website: https://collegehunkshaulingjunk.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NickFriedman1

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collegehunkshaulingjunk

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

How Leaders Can Best Lead Leaders

Show Transcript:

Click to access edited transcript

203: Nick Friedman: I wasn’t going it alone

 

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

 

Call center coach develops and unites the next generation of call center leaders. Through our e-learning and community individuals gain knowledge and skills in the six core competencies that is the blueprint that develops high-performing call center leaders. Successful supervisors do not just happen so go to callcentercoach.com to learn more about enrollment and download your copy of the Supervisor Success Path e-book now.

 

Jim Rembach:     Okay Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who is really going to give us a perspective of being able to deliver an experience holistically and extend it. Nick Freeman was born and raised in Washington D.C. with his older sister Allison. His parents are still married and his mom is a retired schoolteacher and his dad as a retired ophthalmologist. Nick was taught to study hard so that he can get good grades get into a good school get a degree and get a good job. However he was never suited for that traditional path. He was an avid athlete in school and often got into trouble with teachers by speaking out of turn. He met his now business partner Omar Soliman in tenth grade during detention. The summer before his senior year of college Nick was home for summer vacation where he had an internship at the International Monetary Fund that’s when his friend Omar approached him with a beat-up cargo van and an idea to make money by moving people’s furniture and hauling away their unwanted items. They ended up calling themselves college hunks hauling junk. They wrote a business plan their senior year of college which won an entrepreneurship competition. 

 

Upon graduating they briefly had corporate jobs but they quit to begin hauling junk full-time. Nick

Friedman is now the president and co-founder of College Hunks Hauling Junk and moving the largest and fastest-growing junk removal and local moving franchise opportunity in North America and the co-author of the best-selling book, Effortless Entrepreneur: Work Smart Play Hard Make Millions. He has been named among the top 30 entrepreneurs in America under 30 by Inc. magazine and was named on the same list as Mark Zuckerberg as one of the 30 most influential CEOs under 30. Nick is a three-time Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award finalist and recipient of the prestigious Entrepreneur of the year 2018. He’s been featured in numerous books and textbooks as well as Forbes, Fortune and many other national publications. Nick’s company has appeared every year on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing US companies and has appeared twice on The Oprah Winfrey Show and has appeared on the first episode of ABC’s Shark Tank, Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker, and NBC’s blue-collar millionaires. He’s also a board member of the young president’s organization. Nick currently lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife Jennifer and two daughters Elena and Callaway. Nick Friedman are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Nick Friedman:     I’m ready. Thanks for having me thanks for the warm welcome as the great extended intro there I appreciate the opportunity to be here. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Well we definitely want to know a little bit more about you. Hey, just that you’re the CEO and president I’m glad I had the opportunity to share that. I’ve given my leading a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

Nick Friedman:     Yes absolutely. Like you mentioned in the intro I’m a proud father of two great young daughters that occupies a lot of my time energy and passions right now. I’ve kind of done away with most of my hobbies in exchange for that I’m also still leading and growing our company, College Hunks

Hauling Junk and Moving, we now have over 100 franchises around the country doing over a 100M in system-wide revenue annually. Needless to say that still takes a lot of time and energy to continue to grow and continue to make sure our team members are living our core values and our company is delivering on our purpose. I describe our company has a purpose-driven, values-based, socially-conscious organization so I just want to make sure we uphold that standard that we set out for ourselves from the very beginning. 

 

Jim Rembach:     I had the opportunity to meet you at customer contact week in Las Vegas and we chatted for a little bit, I’ll put a link to that brief discussion on your show notes page, but for me I find it extremely interesting when we had that discussion that we were talking about this whole human connection component and how you knew or found out realize that you had to build that connection internally in order for it to be extended to the customer and now you have to extend it to a customer you may never even touch. 

 

Nick Friedman:     Yeah, absolutely.  When we first started the business we had a catchy name and we thought that’s all we needed, a catchy name a bright logo bright colors. We had read a book called the

Purple Cow by Seth Godin it talks about if you’re driving down a country road you see a field of brown cows you’ve seen it before you’re  keep driving but if there’s a Purple Cow there you’re pull over take pictures put it on social media tell your friends and neighbors about it because it’s pretty remarkable. We thought we had a purple cow with the name and the colors which we did. It captured a lot of people’s attention but we quickly realized that if we didn’t provide something unique with the experience, both with our employee experience and then ultimately with the customer experience, then we were just another brown cow with maybe purple paint on it or what have you. And so we needed to make sure we provided that unique and remarkable experience and that was really what we built our business on is that client experience that team member experience and it’s been by design it’s been a very intentional focus since the very beginning and once we realized that important lesson. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Well, I think you even talked about how at the very early stages you had to do all of that. You even mentioned something about the 800 number and the forwarding and some calls that you had to take, tell us about it. 

 

Nick Friedman:     When we started the business we were doing all the work ourselves we were literally driving the truck we were hauling the junk we were answering the phones and we had the 800 number on the back of the truck routed to our cell phones and we would sometimes be multitasking maybe driving erratically. People would call the 800 number on the back of the truck to complain about the erratic driving. I’d be the one in the driver’s seat answering the phone apologizing saying  we don’t condone that type of driving and our company we’ll tell those guys to be safer out on the road thank you for reporting this to us. Find ourselves three or four times that first summer and one of our mentors recommended to us if we’re ever grow the business have a second office or second trucks let alone a second office or second location we needed to learn how to work on the business not just in the business. A lot of that boiled down to systemizing and creating processes for how we interact with the clients how we engage and train our team members and employees and creating systems and processes so that those elements can scale with the business scaling. Like you said, now that we have franchises all around the country we want to maintain that brand consistency at every client touch point every team member touch point so it’s so critical that we defined it. We started defining that from day one just creating checklists and documentation and those things have continued to evolve ever since then. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Actually a friend of mine who is a consultant to companies that are trying to get themselves ready for sale. When you start talking about where we are today with small businesses there are a lot of entrepreneurs and people who started businesses many, many, many years ago and they don’t have any family members to pass it down to and so they’ve got to sell their business. Literally right now we’re looking at millions of companies are facing this issue right now because when you start looking at the aging population there’s just a lot of businesses that are  be coming up for sale. However, when you start talking about those businesses one of the things that they struggle with is that they haven’t done all that documentation I think that has been an enablement for you to be able to grow for sure. However, the downside of that is if you do have a lot of processes and procedures and things like that you kind of zap the emotional connection out of the business because, hey, I’ve got to do this checklist and I don’t connect from a relationship perspective because I’ve got to follow a process. How do you keep that from being something that occurs for you?

 

Nick Friedman:     Well, we do it a couple ways. One of the things is we try to make sure we emphasize to everybody within the organization, actually one of our core values is always branding, and what that means is each individual in the company is the brand not just me not just the logo not just the image on the truck or the website each one of us is a walking, talking representation of the brand. You think about it as a service company in particular the product that our clients are buying are our people and the experience that they have with those individuals when they interact with them. And so what we did is we try to create a very holistic systemize process that’s engaged and interactive with onboarding our new team member like you said it doesn’t become just a regimented checklist somebody has to follow or go through the motions on. What we’ve done time is create an interactive process because the people that we’re hiring primarily in our company maybe 18 or 25 years old for the most part you tell them to provide good customer service and it’s not  connect with them compared to what our clients are expecting because maybe our clients are in their 40s and 50s with disposable income, our clients are eating at 5-star restaurants and staying at luxury hotels and maybe most of our team members are eating at fast food restaurants and maybe not traveling as much at this life stage and so what we’ve done is created an exercise where we re-document and outline what our clients expectations what are they likely to complain about which are typically missed expectations what can we do a hundred percent of the time to eliminate the complaints and then what are some above and beyond opportunities how can we reward and recognize those wow moments. 

 

Really what you want to do as a founder or an entrepreneur is not just systemize the process but to some degree systemize the passion and create a platform by which your team members can really shine and show that energy and enthusiasm. We’ve done that through development of our core values and put an emphasis on that. One of our core values also is listen, fulfill, and delight. We make that part of the way we operate that’s the way we do things. Another one of our core values is fun enthusiastic team environment so that creates an experience for our team members where it isn’t boring or where it isn’t sort of dull process driven only. I think those are ways that we’ve been able to scale the employee experience and the customer experience through systems and processes that aren’t just sort of glaze over going through the motions. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Thanks for sharing that because for me I started interpreting a couple things, really you’re communicating and conveying the vision going the purpose and you’re keeping it top of mind and constant focus and like what you had said you’re also giving them more than just, hey, go do this there’s more structure for it and it enables success. 

 

Nick Friedman:     There’s some buy-in from it because we’re not just handing my checklist it says do this we’re involving them in the exercise where we’re defining the client expectations when we do that training exercise. So there’s a sense of ownership and then a willingness to accept accountability with that as well. But then you hit a good point about the vision and the core values and the purpose for us we’ve got a lofty opportunity we’re not just moving people stuff moving is shown as number three next to death and divorce as the most stressful time in somebody’s life junk as it piles up in people’s garages and basements and attics has shown to create stress and anxiety so we’re really had the opportunity to remove people’s stress when we go in to provide a memorable or an stress-free type experience and you can’t systemize all of it. 

 

I will tell this one story we had a mover that was doing a move at an assisted living facility and he was in an elevator and there was an elderly woman in the elevator and the elevator got stuck and she was having sort of an anxiety attack because she couldn’t stand for an extended period of time so he actually got on his hands and knees and let her sit on his back while the elevator was being worked on and was getting fixed. So when the elevator opened up somebody snapped a picture of it because there was those kind of sights to be seen we posted it on social media ended up going viral and really sort of inspired quite a few people. But you can’t put in the operations manual what do you do if you’re stuck in an elevator and an elderly woman’s in there and the elevator gets stuck and she can’t stand? So that gets down to having a purpose and a set of values that you emphasize and use as a litmus test for who we hire and bring into the company how we train our team members how we reward and recognize them. So then it becomes engrained in their DNA as to how they’re going to operate or how they’re going to function. So they think resourcefully when they’re faced with an opportunity to make somebody happy or have a positive interaction with the company from a service standpoint. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Well I think that’s a great story and I’m glad you share it. You said something there that I think is so critical—think resourcefully. Because unfortunately when you start talking about service expectations and service delivery I think that’s where a lot of gaps actually occur. Meaning that if it’s outside of the box that person can’t think resourcefully and move forward. 

 

Nick Friedman:     Yeah. I was talking to a company yesterday and one of their core values is always do the right thing. And so yes there may be something in the procedural manual that says, we don’t open this meeting room at 9:30 we open it at 9:45, but what if somebody comes in is waiting and they’ve got their hands full with a bunch of bags and they need to put it down somewhere? Do the right thing open the meeting room at 9:30 let them in let them set their bags down. And so that comes down to empowerment because if you’ve got a set of criteria by which you operate which are typically the core values so you defined those you’ve got a set of service standards you then also have to empower your team members to make decisions as if they own the company. The questions I always tell our team members to ask themselves when they’re making a decision is, is it good for the customer? Is it good for the company? Is it in line with our core values? Is it ethical? Am I willing to be held accountable for it? If they ask themselves those five questions and the answer is yes then just make the decision don’t feel like you’ve got to get permission or don’t feel like you’ve got to refer back to the procedure manual that might say something differently. The procedure manual are set of guidelines that are in a framework but like you said you’ve got to have the empowerment to be resourceful with those decisions as well.

 

Jim Rembach:     And it’s so important and I also want to go back to something you said a moment ago when you had mentioned something about walking, talking, representation. Let’s look at the company name, College Hunks Hauling Junk, so what happens when a lady jumps out of the truck? 

 

Nick Friedman:     What we’ve done is we’ve defined our hunks as an acronym which stands for, Honest, Uniform Nice Knowledgeable service it’s more than just the physical representation or a personification of what we typically define with the word hunk and it really encompasses all of those elements. Is the person friendly, personable, professional, prepared to do the work? And so we do have female, we call them hunkettes playfully, but we do have female team members that work on the trucks it’s all about making that client connection it’s a conversation starter. They can show up and say, hey, I bet you were expecting a guy but I’m here to help move your furniture and I can do it just as good as the guys do. And then it creates a wild piece a wild experience as well. Same thing with the college element not a hundred percent of our team members are in college, the business started in college a lot of our team members are students but what we try to do is we try to create a conversation with the clients when we are performing the service. We talk about our team members talk about where they went to school where they’re going to school where they might be going back to school where they’re taking a semester off from, so again it creates a set of a level of rapport with the client. You’re right be a proud representation of the brand at all times. 

 

Jim Rembach:     One of the things we always talk about in our company is BTV-ready, conduct and carry yourself as if Oprah’s walking through the doors or following your truck around because even though she might not be, guess what? Everybody in your community is watching when that big orange and green truck drives up into the gas station and you’re hopping out or what’s your body language when you’re walking into the store how do you interact with passer buys when you’re wearing the uniform, all of those things matter because they impact the impression that people have on the brand. 

 

Nick Friedman:     It’s so true for me I always have to get a chuckle when I see somebody who is like a mobile car washing and their vans nasty. What we’re talking about here and obviously with the way that you have conveyed how you’ve built this rapidly growing franchise system is that you’re obviously someone who is looking for ways talking about that vision and being inspired and all of that and one of the ways that we do that on the show is that we look at quotes. So, is there a quote or two that you can share that you like? There’s a few, one that always has resonated with me is—don’t chase the money chase the vision—and what I mean by that is as entrepreneur we can sometimes get short-sighted by the scoreboard of the financial opportunities the financial rewards and in most cases those financial rewards don’t happen nearly as fast as you wish they would. There’s very few entrepreneurs that say I made more money faster than I ever thought I would because entrepreneurs are optimistic by nature they get into it thinking they’re going to be successful from day one and the timeline is typically longer and the work involved is simply much more difficult and you can become impatient and you can also start trying to shortcut the success if all you’re thinking about is the money and you might also give up. 

 

Same thing with your team members that are working for you if things are more difficult or the money’s not coming as quickly they may abandon ship and not help you achieve the long term vision that you’re trying to create if all is about the financial rewards. There could be some short-term motivation but ultimately the long term gain is not going to be there. That’s been probably my mantra that I remember quite regularly because we’ve been able to create some very passionate, committed and loyal team members even in the early days when the business was struggling and didn’t allow ourselves to get sidetracked by the financial elements when things weren’t going as well as we hope to, that’s probably my favorite quote. The other one is—work on the business not in the business—that’s one of the early quotes that we’ve heard and I think is repeated regularly to early stage entrepreneurs especially. You have to think to yourself are you starting a business that have certain levels of freedom of time freedom of money freedom of just energy? If so, and you want the business to be able to work for you not you always working for the business, you’ve got to create those processes and systems so that you’re adding value to the company that you’re not just doing frontline labor consistently. Yes, you have to start at the bottom and work your way up but you’ve got to have that mindset of being an owner. So those are two quotes that I think are always relevant and timeless. 

 

Jim Rembach:     For me as you were talking through those I started seeing that those quotes and how you elaborate it upon those could be done, even if I work in an organization, they could be done on me personally. Like, hey, it’s not that I should be losing ten pounds and focusing on losing 10 pounds what I should be focusing in on is healthier living and eating. 

 

Nick Friedman:     That’s a phenomenal example analogy, whatever you want to call it, that’s a great point that’s a great point. If your focus strictly on the number then you’re not going to get the same level fulfillment you’re not going to get the same level of results. But if you’re thinking about the big picture and the long-term vision and same thing whether it’s an employee thinking of what his all in the company and what he might achieve there they’re   be less devastated by the short-term setbacks that may come up from time to time. 

 

Jim Rembach:     I think what you’re saying right there is that whole short-term versus long-term thinking and knowing that—like you were saying I’m an impatient person so I want things to come faster than they really can conceivably ever show up. 

 

Nick Friedman:     Absolutely I think we all are. I certainly am the exact same way we do live in a world of instant gratification where you can get everything delivered or picked up at the press of a button or an answer with one quick Google click but the reality especially in the business realm is that nothing happens overnight no overnight success happens overnight. Even the unicorn businesses that you hear about in some cases maybe the equivalent of winning the lottery or in other cases, still took a long, long, long tail to get to where they are in terms of planning and effort. I think impatience is something that you really have to tame because it can it can create a sense of kind of tumultuous suffering in yourself if you’re not willing to kind of appreciate the process and the journey along the way. Also in the early days for our business when things weren’t happening as quickly as I wanted them to I would try to shortcut success. I would try to chase a new shiny object I try to chase a new business idea hoping that that would make me more successful more quickly or would work easier but it really was just an expensive distraction to what we were already on which was building a pretty, unique and successful enterprise. It just was going to take longer than I think my mind was letting myself appreciate it. That’s also a delicate balance too because the same impatience that we have is also what drives us to keep pushing and push harder but we have to temper it we have to sort of tame the beast to some degree and you’ll be much more fulfilled along the way doing that. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah, those are all great points what you just explained right there is really kind of the premise behind the Fast Leader show. You can take shortcuts all you want but that’s not the fast road. 

 

Nick Friedman:     That’s right that’s a great point that’s a great way to put it I love that. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Fast leader is doing things right building upon and going back to—we could take the easy road now but that’s   lead to the hard road later or we can take you now because that’s give us the gift to the easy road, same thing with fast leader. 

 

Nick Friedman:     There really is something to the notion of momentum and it picks up over time and it’s sometimes hard to notice when it when there’s a shift and that’s where the patience comes in. Jim Collins talks about it and he calls it the flywheel effect. When you first start your business it’s like you’re pushing this big giant disk this oversized stone disk and you might be just inching it forward at the beginning and you’re having to put the same amount of effort eventually the thing is starting to rotate a little bit easier and easier and eventually it’ll kind of pick up its own speed of momentum where you’re just kind of like a merry-go-round at the playgrounds where you’re just kind of pushing it as it goes by. So things do get easier momentum does pick up but it’s certainly not an overnight endeavor. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Definitely. Talking about momentum and getting over humps is that I’m sure when you start talking about going through college and making your way through that, building the business becoming a parent all of those things there’s a lot of humps that you’ve probably had to go over that put you where you are today. Is there one of those times where you can actually share that story? 

 

Nick Friedman:     Yeah, I think the most impactful for me was—we started franchising our company right around 2008 and if you remember the economic climate 2008 to 2009 and 2010 that couple of year window, everything was going down and when we started franchising it was still kind of right at the peak so in our minds we were like thinking, okay, we’re  become multi-millionaires overnight we’re start franchising this business the economy is crank and the housing market is cranking and then all of a sudden we started franchising and everything collapsed and our reality just was overnight kind of shifted altogether. So there was plenty of sleepless nights where we were wondering to ourselves, hey, is this thing going to make it? Should we just go fold up and go get a graduate degree and then try to apply for a job in a couple years when the economy turns back around? So we were having all those self-doubt talks to ourselves and amongst my business partner and even my family and my parents. But I think what that did for us is it really made us better business people because in a booming economy I think it’s easy to sort of just kind of ride the wave with everybody else but when things are down you have to sort of scrape together we talked about the resourcefulness element of it become more strategic how you’re  invest your money how you’re get more revenue and that was actually the time where we really expanded from primarily offering junk removal to doing junk removal and moving services to kind of expand our sandbox of available revenue opportunities. So, ultimately it was a great lesson a great experience but it was certainly a very dark down moment at the time. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, you have to share with me when you start talking about that dark down moment, what is something that you were actually able to hold on to that allowed you to get through? 

 

Nick Friedman:     One of the things was surrounding myself with other entrepreneurs they were dealing with the same challenges at the time. I had joined this group called the entrepreneurs organization, EEO, kind of a global group of entrepreneurs with relatively high growth companies. We were in a smaller forum setting where we were kind of sharing our challenges and difficulties. Being able to share I realize that I guess I wasn’t alone because a lot of times as an entrepreneur you feel like you’re on an island, or as a leader in in in any capacity for like you’re on an island, and being in sort of a peer group of other leaders that were sort of muscling through the uphill battle and the uphill climb the same way that we were that gave me I guess the confidence to know I wasn’t going it alone and that there were other people that were   fight and a lot of them would say, hey, our mantras we’re not give up we’re never quit we’re just keep going and so I use that as motivation for me to just kind of dig deep and keep going. It also helps having a business partner in my case who happened to be one of my friends from high school. A lot of times when there’s economic strain it can put a strain on the relationship but it actually I think improved and strengthened our bond because we were able to support each other and get through it together. 

 

Jim Rembach:    So when you start looking at where you are today and being a young dad having all of these accolades and aspirations but when you start thinking about what’s next for Nick, what’s one of your goals? 

 

Nick Friedman:     For us we have a few different visions with the company. Personally, with the company we want to become recognized and revered as an iconic brand that spans really beyond the moving & hauling industry. If you think of those iconic brands like—take Harley-Davidson people will wear those t-shirts they don’t even drive that motorcycle which is the product Harley-Davidson sells because people identify with what that brand represents the freedom to renegade open road. So I want people to associate our brand with leadership development with entrepreneur inspiration with company culture with great service so that’s what we’re really striving for from an ideological perspective. Size wise we want to be at 200 franchises within the next three years we want to make sure that our franchise owners are averaging a million dollars in revenue per territory that they’re happy and profitable and growing each year. And then from a personal standpoint some of the, I guess ambitions that I have that I told myself at an early age I would pursue at some point of my adulthood, I would love to be able to coach high school basketball at some point. In college I would say to myself, hey, I want to be able to be successful professionally by the time I’m 40 so that I can have the flexibility and choice to be able to kind of do whatever I want and what I always have wanted to be able to do at some point is coach high school basketball. I would love to be able to do that I would love to be able to do some more public speaking and share some of my story and experiences to help inspire other people to pursue their goals. Those are some of my future vision aspirations not just for the company but for myself as well. 

 

Jim Rembach:     And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

 

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Jim Rembach:     Alright, here we go Fast Leader Legion it’s time for the Hump day Hoedown. Okay, Nick, the Hump day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. We’ll ask you several questions but your job is to give us robust and rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Nick Friedman, are you ready to hoedown? 

 

Nick Friedman:     I’m ready to hoedown, let’s do it. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today? 

 

Nick Friedman:     I think what’s holding me back from being an even better leader today is, focus, focus, focus, focus. I still get distracted too easily by new opportunities new ventures or small trivial things that are preventing me from achieving my best. 

 

Jim Rembach:     What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

 

Nick Friedman:     The best leadership advice I’ve ever received is, leadership is all about being an inspirational leader not being a dictatorial leader. So, inspire others with the vision of where you’re going don’t try to instruct them or direct them on how to get there. 

 

Jim Rembach:     What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success? 

 

Nick Friedman:     The secret that contributes to my success is eating healthy, getting plenty of sleep and not taking life too seriously so that you don’t get too stressed out.

 

Jim Rembach:     What is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life? 

 

Nick Friedman:     Honestly, my iPhone is one of my favorite tools because I write everything down in it. The minute I have a thought in my head I put it in my iPhone because I know if I try to sink it in my head I’m just going to have a merry-go-round going around trying to remember what that epiphany or idea was. So everything in my iPhone is how I stay organized. 

 

Jim Rembach:     What would be one book that you’d recommend to are legion and it could be from any genre, of course we’re going to put a link to, Effortless Entrepreneur on your show notes page as well. 

 

Nick Friedman:     I think the book that everybody should read is How To Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. It’s a little bit of an older book he’s most well-known for How to Win Friends and Influence People but I think How To Stop Worrying and Start Living is just a really good reminder again how to keep things in perspective and not get overly stressed out which when you’re in a leadership position it can happen very quickly. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Okay, Fast Leader legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/nickfriedman. Okay, Nick this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25. You can take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take it all back you can only choose one. What skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? And here’s a thing, 25 weren’t too long ago for you so you remember it quite well. 

 

Nick Friedman:     Yeah, we talked about it already and this is an easy one, patience, patience, patience, patience. Just know that it’s going to work out life as long as long as you don’t step off the wrong edge of the cliff and just have patience in the process and trust that things are going to work out. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Nick it was an honor to spend time with you today can you please share with the Fast Leader legion how they can connect with you? 

 

Nick Friedman:     Absolutely. I have my own personal website, nickfriedman.com. You can also go to collegehunksfranchise.com if you want to learn more about our franchise opportunities, collegehunkshaulingjunk.com if you need moving or junk removal services and then of course if you go to my main website all my social media links are there. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram Facebook, Twitter all those sorts of things. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Nick Friedman, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links, from every show special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

 

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