Wilson Reiser for LTG Testimonial

Speaker: Wilson Reiser, Winans

Wilson Reiser: My name is Wilson Riser, I'm the owner and CEO of Winans, Chocolates and Coffees, which is a franchisor based out of the Dayton Ohio area. We franchise chocolate and coffee stores. The reason that we decided to start working with Gerry is that we went to the IFA operations conference in Chicago in late 2021. Gerry was one of the final speakers at that conference. And the topic of Gerry's speech was emerging franchisors, the struggles that they face, the resource deficiencies, the scarcity of both knowledge and capital that go into building and scaling a franchise brand and everything that Gerry was saying was exactly the issues that we were facing at the time. And Gerry presented a really attractive skill set where he both is very experienced at building franchisors and he's also experienced with implementing entrepreneurial operating systems and with structuring the management and operations of a business. So as an emerging franchisor, when you need people to be swiss army knives and wear multiple hats, Gerry is able to come in as a team member and both bring that Franchising expertise but also bring the management and operation structure expertise, which makes them extremely valuable for companies like ours.

Wilson Reiser: So we've been working with Gerry for about six months now and our experience has been extraordinary, Gerry is very experienced in what he does and there are very few things that will throw him off guard. He he's seen it and he's dealt with it and he knows how to take a step back and diagnose the issues and and put together solutions. Gerry is an upbeat, energetic person, which is great. I love meeting with him and our team on Monday mornings. It gets us off to a great start. He is clearly a very centered and kind, caring person and that is important and has helped me personally grow as a leader in understanding how to approach my team and how to approach certain difficult situations. Gerry meets you where you are as a company, so he didn't come in and say, okay, we need to do this, this and this and we need to have it done in 60 days and here's your homework assignments. He really took time to get to know us to get to know our team and to understand what was the highest priority, what we needed to start working on now, what could wait a little bit longer. And in the last six months we've been able to restructure our company, implement the System and Soul operating system and software, defined our mission vision and values, build our organizational chart and now we're at a place where we're expanding and opening new franchise locations. So even though Gerry takes things at our pace, he also keeps us moving forward and make sure that we don't get too far out in front of our skis. So all in all, Gerry's been an extremely valuable addition to our team. For me personally, as the leader and the owner of the company, he has been a great resource for me. He's someone that I can confide in and somebody that is, that has my back in all situations. And as, as a lot of folks know that are probably looking to bring on a business coach, it gets lonely at the top. And with Gerry, he's right up there with you.

Wilson Reiser: the top benefit of working with Gerry is getting to where we want to be with our Franchising department much, much faster than we would have been able to get without his help. So Gerry knows where we need to go and how to get there. and where to start and there are a lot of lessons that we've learned along the way and that we would have learned on our own. But with Gerry there, he's able to kind of shorten that learning period. So starting with franchise relationships and how to approach those relationships that are very important with the highest level of effectiveness and how to interact, how to structure our communications, our language and so on. That's where really where we began and then getting things in place like franchise business coaching and the financial acumen that it takes to set those things up, Gerry has all of the nuts and bolts knowledge but approaches it in a way of empowering our team to learn those things and to then be able to take it and bring it to the system and keep moving the ball forward even without his direct involvement. other things like site evaluations and how to launch those and how to do things in a franchise system that are difficult but necessary and how to do them to achieve our goals and to, to limit risk