Have you considered selling franchises to foreign investors? Or maybe you didn’t know that working with foreign investors was even an option. Our guest today is Patrick Findaro, who is an expert at helping match foreign investors with U.S. franchise opportunities.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Make sure that the person is not buying your franchise to just get a visa.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- You can visit our guest’s website at:
- Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop:
- https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/
- If you are ready to franchise your business or take it to the next level: CLICK HERE.
- Connect with our guest on social:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/franchise-for-sale-patrick/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/visa-franchise-llc/
- https://www.facebook.com/visafranchise/
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Patrick is the Co-Founder of Visa Franchise, the trusted provider of U.S. immigration solutions for entrepreneurs and professionals. Patrick oversees product, sales, marketing, and strategic relationships for Visa Franchise. Over three million professionals/investors have watched YouTube videos, listened to podcast episodes, and read articles produced by Patrick and his team. Patrick started his career at JPMorgan’s New York City headquarters, helping to manage a $2 billion credit portfolio. He later worked in private equity and information services before co-founding Visa Franchise in 2015 and Vetted Biz (franchise intelligence hub) in 2019 with his brother, Jack. Patrick graduated from Colby College with a concentration in International Economic Policy. Through extensive study and business experience in Brazil, Argentina, and France, he has achieved various degrees of fluency in Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Tom DuFore (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise team. And as we open today, I’m wondering how you are leading yourself and what kind of effort are you putting into your personal and professional development as a leader.
(00:26):
Well, our guest today is Dr. Rana Al-Falaki, who shares with us her NAIL-IT system for leaders. Now, Rana is a multi-award-winning health and performance expert, specializing in optimal performance, creating remarkable and sustainable transformation and success not for short-term fixes that don’t last. She’s been an innovator, disruptor, and leader in the field of health for over 20 years and is an award-winning executive and leadership coach, speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, and author. You’re going to love our interview, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
(01:00):
One of the reasons and primary reasons I wanted to have you on was to talk about your NAIL-IT leadership system and this program that you have. So I’d love for you just to start with that. What is it and describe that for us.
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (01:14):
Yeah, thank you, Tom. Thank you. And you know what? Most people, I tell you, a few years ago when I just would find these speakers and they just wanted to talk about leadership, I would just yawn out of boredom of like, “Oh my God, not another conversation about leadership. Are you serious?”
(01:30):
NAIL-IT leadership is exactly that. It helps you to nail it, but it also has a very different emphasis on it. So when we’re talking leadership, we’re not so much talking the hard skills, although of course they are necessary. Productivity is a big part of NAIL-IT. But it’s really, it’s the soft skills. So the emphasis on NAIL-IT is about you. It’s about self-leadership. It’s about how you can shift and how you can shift those around you. Because ultimately, yes, we’re entrepreneurs, but often we grow our team, we grow our business, we need to know how to unite that team and create a high-performing team, not just a high-performing individual. And then based around that, how you ultimately succeed.
(02:09):
So that’s really a kind of a summary for what NAIL-IT leadership achieves. It achieves optimal performance, which means sustainable levels of high success. Particularly for an entrepreneur we all know how incredibly challenging that can actually be, right? Because you are in your own business, you are working hard, you have no boundaries with regards to time. A weekend is not a weekend. You can barely dare to actually take a day off. And if you do, you end up feeling guilty. And you never switch off and you’re there on your emails all night long and yeah, forever, right? So how can you avoid burnout, still perform highly, build your business, build your relationships? And let’s not forget, the world of business is actually based around the relationships that you as well as the support from the people who love you, so your personal relationships and your friends, and forgiveness from your children if you have them because you’re working all hours.
(03:10):
So it really is about the sustainable high levels of success. And very often what I notice, particularly when I start working with clients, is they like quick fixes. And we all do, right? We feel a little bit tired. We have a quick fix from something as simple as having a shot of coffee from a health point of view or buying yourself something or hopping into new projects because someone’s just given you another venture to get involved in. And then you get excited and you feed on that excitement and on that adrenaline, and it’s only a quick fix because ultimately nothing actually changes long-term. So NAIT-IT leadership is about sustainable success, changing you from within in order to turn yourself really into a recyclable machine that you never run out of energy.
Dr. Tom DuFore (03:58):
I like how you described this optimal, right? Optimization being optimal. And that word stands out to me as you described this. And in one regard, it’s attractive because I want to be optimal. And at the same time, it also seems a little defeating because like, “Well, how in the world can I actually be optimal all the time or most of the time?” Right? It seems like a feat that is it impossible to get there. So I’d love for you to break down a little bit more of the NAIL-IT leadership system to maybe help show some of these steps or progression to reach this optimal state
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (04:34):
Yeah. And just to say optimal, sometimes… I like to differentiate the difference between optimal and high and low because obviously if you are a low performer, I mean you’re not going to shout from the rooftops, you’re going to feel pretty rubbish about yourself. You’ll be beating yourself up all the time. You’re less likely to move and propel forward, so you’re less likely to grow, make changes, make shifts, and your health really is affected. You’re more likely to suffer with depression, low mood, and poor relationships.
(05:00):
High performance, on the other hand, we hear about this all the time, right? High performance, peak performance, and people think that this is what you need to aspire to. But actually the research shows us that if you are a high performer, you are much more likely to burn out because what happens is you become completely tunnel-vision. I mean, I just described the life of an entrepreneur that was definitely my life before I optimized it. So relationships fall by the wayside and you will often burn out.
(05:26):
So people end up thinking when I say that, that optimal is average, it’s somewhere in the middle. But let me tell you this, if you are an entrepreneur, you are not average, and I would never want you to be. I don’t believe in average, right? We don’t do mediocre and we don’t settle.
(05:43):
Optimal performance is about reaching that really high level of success, but instead of that bell curve where it drops down over time because you burn out, you keep on going and you keep on growing. So you get there just as quickly, but you keep it going.
(05:57):
So if we think it’s about optimizing you, and that means you might have a day that isn’t so brilliant, but that’s okay. In which case, how do you pick yourself up again? Where does your resilience come from?
(06:09):
So NAIL-IT is actually an acronym that consists of these six elements that you need to master, and it stands for your needs, your attitude, your integrity, becoming limitless, your intuition, and then tangibility. And then how do you really turn something into reality?
(06:28):
So if you start with needs, these are all systems in themselves. The whole thing is actually 38 components, but needs covers about the foundations of success, really about yourself, being able to say no, being able to create boundaries, being emotionally intelligent, which actually if you are, the studies show you are 90% more successful. So how do you master that emotional intelligence? How can you master your communication skills. As an entrepreneur, particularly when you’re scaling and trying to then sell your business for get it ready for franchise, you need different forms of communication. You need to read the room, you need to understand who you’re talking to. You need to create influential communication. So how do you do that?
(07:08):
So we train people in all of those aspects and elements, and the end is of course needs. What are your needs in the first place? Because most of the time as an entrepreneur, we fail to honor them. We’re up all hours, right? So we burn out. So understanding yourself.
(07:25):
And most of the time, people, it’s particularly again, business owners, entrepreneurs, when I say like, “What do you want?” Most of them will turn around and say, “I know what I don’t want.” And that’s fine, but you also need to understand… You can use that to pivot to determine what you do want. But most of them will not know what they need or they will not honor what they need. They go after a goal rather than understanding that if they honor their needs, they will achieve the goal.
(07:51):
So I touched on resilience a minute ago, and that’s covered under attitude. So again, the sustainable success toolkit is this whole toolkit of different ways to grow your resilience, to be able to thrive, to be able to come back from failure, to develop a growth mindset, to be solution-focused, to be able to problem solve, to be able to sort out the self-talk that goes in your head so that it’s positive most of the time, because most of the time people have an 80% repetitive thoughts and 95% negative self-talk. How can we bring that to the fore? And how can you be having fun? And how can you be smiling?
(08:28):
Usually as an entrepreneur, half the time you want to kind of tear your hair out because you have to pull yourself up. When you get a knock back, you have to pull yourself up. When you are trying to get your business ready for franchise and you are having to systematize all the time, and suddenly what you thought was going to be a simple task is daunting and overwhelming, how do you overcome that overwhelm and pick yourself up and do what you need to do?
(08:51):
So that’s the A. That’s developing your attitude. And again, the 80/20 rule, right? 20% of any business is about the actual talent and the knowledge. 80% is about your attitude. You really have to master that.
(09:06):
The integrity, this really does become about your identity, right? And when I talk about integrity, I’m not just talking about honesty and trust. I’m talking about standing out from the crowd. And again, as an entrepreneur, that’s what you need to do. You need to stand out from the crowd. So how do you do it? You need to know who you are in the first place, what you stand for, what your values are and the values of your business are. Again, particularly when you want to franchise that. This is about systemization, this is about consistency. You have a franchise that is based around your name and your reputation. You don’t want other people going off and ruining that. But then you need to ground yourself in the first place.
(09:49):
The whole system is called the Valuable Being Blueprint. So valuable, again, this stands for your values, your authenticity. I confess by my own confession that I don’t think I was ever truly authentic. I thought I was. I was a very nice person. I was very honest. I was very smiley. And it took a lot of soul-searching to realize that people saw the smile, but they never saw the pain, they never saw the vulnerability. And until I exposed that, I was never as successful as I am today when people truly see me.
(10:23):
So are you consistent? Does everyone see you the same way from your friends, your family, your work colleagues? How afraid are you to show up as your wacky, crazy self if it’s living inside you? So we talk a lot about authenticity and leadership, don’t we? So important. What’s your legacy? What’s your purpose? Where does your energy lie? What are your energetic influences? The list is endless.
(10:48):
The L is about limitless. Again, as an entrepreneur, you need to be fearless. You need to be able to take risks. You need to be able to go for it. So where did your beliefs come from in the first place? How can you choose new beliefs? How can you empower yourself? How can you instill those new beliefs in yourself? How can you be fearless and stress-free? So that’s the Boundless Beliefs method.
(11:10):
The I’s is the north star navigator. This is all about intuition. And again, to be the most powerful leader, you need to follow your intuition. The most powerful leaders make decisions based around intuition combined with their head and their heart. It’s what I call holographic thinking. So again, in a day where we are bombarded by information, I mean, I read a stat the other day that actually the amount of information we receive in one day nowadays is more than we used to receive in a lifetime 150 years ago, in one day. And our brain has to process that. So sometimes we have to silence all this stuff going on to allow your intuition to take over and to recognize it.
(12:00):
The last bit, the T is tangibility. And this is the mistake most entrepreneurs make, especially when they start working with coaches, that it’s becomes very superficial. It’s like, “Okay, I want to franchise my business. Okay, how are we going to do that?” And they go straight to the goals rather than, “Who are you and how are you going to do this? And how are you going to grow this? And how are you going to get even better at this?” So you’ve got to dig deep. And if you really do dig deep and you don’t just do superficial goal setting, then again, you are really going to be able to land it. You’re going to make it tangible. You’re going to turn your dreams into reality. That’s what tangibility is.
(12:41):
So for that, again, it’s another system that’s a AAA. It’s standing for aim, act, and attain and really takes you through that process, including how do you anticipate, how do you feel it as if it’s a reality already? How do you set intentions the right way? How do you visualize? How do you move? How do you just get on with it? How do you not procrastinate? Because so many entrepreneurs do and they get stuck. They get stuck in their own way. Where is your accountability? I’m sure that’s what you do when you help people. Where’s the accountability? What talent do you actually need? Because there are internal goals and external goals, we need to change you, but sometimes you need to go off and develop more skills. So again, I’m sure that’s where you help train, train your clients to be able to develop those skills for franchising and also to grow in confidence.
(13:35):
And then the last, attain, well, this is about keeping it going. This is about reflecting, celebrating your wins, appreciating, giving gratitude, taking time to reflect, giving feedback, tweaking the formula so that you can really keep on going and inspiring yourself and others. And then what’s next? So that’s a massive whirlwind. You see, it sounds like a lot, but it’s delivered in a very fun experiential way. And you could take any one piece because some people will be stronger in some areas than others.
Dr. Tom DuFore (14:13):
Thank you for that overview. Dr. Rana. And one thing, as we’re talking about the NAIL-IT leadership methodology, just for someone who’s listening in and says, “Hey, I like what she’s saying. I’m interested in learning more about this,” how can they maybe get in touch with you or get access to some of the content you have produced?
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (14:32):
I would just go to the website. I would probably… Actually, there’s a NAIT-IT website. So nail-it.uk. Or actually just go to my website, which is just ralfalaki, with no hyphen, .com. And then you get links to all of my other websites because there’s stuff based around my speaking, stuff based around specifically the NAIL-IT leadership teaching, stuff’s based around my coaching because I don’t have it or there’s so many different websites. And so my website has access to all of those. And then you’ll see stuff that I talk about, my previous podcasts, my videos, my social media, and just connect with us from there.
(15:11):
And I do have a book coming, hopefully February next year, the NAIL-IT leadership book, which certainly will give you the first stepping stone into that.
Dr. Tom DuFore (15:20):
Wonderful. Well, we’ll make sure we include the links in the show notes here as well. This is a great time in the show, Dr. Rana, where we make a transition and we ask every guest the same four questions. And the first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (15:39):
Yeah. And you know what? This comes back to the attitude, right? This is where you grow. So it might be a miss, but we always talk about failing forward. So how do you pick it up and how do you learn and how do you grow? I think for me, when I was launching… Well, okay, let me say, I became a coach and I came out with all these grandiose ideas of what I was going to do. And to start with, it didn’t quite work out. And boy, did I want to give up. And then I went back into my dentistry fields because I’m renowned around the whole world. You lecture and travel, really well known in the field of dentistry. So I went back into my little cubby hole, which is what everybody often does. They go back into what’s familiar, that safe space, and you reconcile with yourself and you give yourself a load of self-talk to make yourself feel better about it. But then I didn’t stay there.
(16:30):
And so NAIL-IT actually came to me through an intuition and what it stood for, but it sat on my LinkedIn profile for years. And it was only when I met somebody and somehow I started having all these discussions back about personal and professional development that it inspired me to get back on. And then within six months, not only did I get back on, but I had a whole new product. We had a whole new brand. I was talking to companies. I was suddenly going into companies and training them. So the lesson there is it’s fine to shrink back into your little cubby hole every now and again when you don’t succeed, but if something needs to come out into this world, the way to remember it is that you are here to serve. So get out of your own way and fail forwards because often the end result is even better than you ever could have imagined.
Dr. Tom DuFore (17:26):
Thank you for sharing. Well, let’s look at the flip side of that. Have you had a make or a highlight or two you’d like to share?
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (17:34):
Yeah, absolutely. So actually one, which just happened this weekend. This weekend I’m part of the Professional Speakers Academy and I’m also one of their mentors and I was up on stage receiving my award for my contribution to the world of training by a huge, massive academy. And I just felt so proud to be holding this award up there, and again, remembering that this is about serving.
(17:59):
Now this room, the Professional Speakers Academy, is full of people who get six-figure awards, seven-figure awards. And there are a lot of people earning a lot of money, and there is no shame in that. And if you feel shame, then again, you’re not going to succeed because there is nothing wrong with money. Allow it to come in, allow it to go out. Let it flow through you because that is how you are abundance and manifest abundance. So it was a fantastic experience, a huge win to celebrate everybody who happened to be earning tons of money through serving.
(18:37):
No one keeps it to themselves. And I think that’s something really important, again, for entrepreneurs to remember because sometimes they can be a little bit of guilt and a bit of worry and thinking, “Oh, should I be spending? Shouldn’t I?” So that was an amazing win in terms of an award. And again, another award this year from the CEO today, executive coaching.
(18:54):
In terms of actual business award, business wins other than obviously this book that’s about to come out, yeah, I actually, I’ve niched down a little bit more to what I do. So where, of course I do still work with business owners and entrepreneurs with of course my 25 experiences as a leader in the field of dentistry and health, I’m actually working here in the UK with someone called the chief dental officer. So he’s the person who’s in charge of all of dentistry in the UK. And again, through my newfound confidence and all the other work I’d done, I pitched them. And we are now at the point of creating an entire platform about leadership and wellbeing that’s going to serve the entire dental community in the UK, and then we’ll be able to go global. And I’m building that platform. So that’s a pretty huge win.
Dr. Tom DuFore (19:44):
Those are huge wins for sure. And congratulations on the recognition as well. Well, the next question we ask every guest is, have you used a Multiplier to grow yourself personally or professionally or any businesses you’ve run?
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (19:59):
There are two things I’d say there. And one of course, it comes under the needs. It comes under the Kickstart Wellbeing framework, is learn to say no. And it’s very funny actually, because more recently I’ve been saying it more and more. I mean, I had pretty good boundaries. You need boundaries. You really need boundaries and you need to say no.
(20:17):
But also it’s trusting your gut. So I found myself in situations where because I am inevitably a people pleaser and I work in the care industry, I am wanting to please people. And you will find this as an entrepreneur, especially as you start to enjoy success, you will find people who want to jump on your coattails. It happens so frequently. And sometimes it can be a bit frightening to go alone and you want to have a partner. You think, “Okay. How can I share my skills?” So for me, actually the multiplier that I’ve done is actually I’ve said, “No. I’ve grown in enough confidence for myself and realized actually these people need me more than I need them.” So how can I build and grow a team that is like me, that can give me the qualities and the extra things that I need for my business, but without being tied into a pure partnership?
(21:13):
And I think, again, for your listeners who are entrepreneurs, who are getting their businesses ready for franchise or are franchising, they’re developing something really great there. Live in your greatness. So for me, that’s been a big, big multiplier because it’s set me free to do things the way I really want to do them, trusting my gut, trusting my intuition, honoring my needs.
(21:36):
The other thing I would say is daily rituals, every step of the way. I get up in the morning to get my cup of tea because I desperately need my caffeine, but then I actually get into bed and I sit there and I write my gratitude journal. And it’s never a list. Because if you write gratitude in the form of a list, you’re too in your head, and that’s not going to help you manifest anyway.
(21:56):
So I will free-write two pages in my journal on gratitude. I might be there for 15, 20 minutes about everything I’m grateful and appreciative for. And it is in paragraph form, it’s free flowing. And it’s also very much about maybe things that I desire, but I’m giving gratitude as if they exist right now. So it immediately elevates your energy into that manifesting stage because you’re visualizing, you’re focusing. And again, the suggestion is actually if you focus on any one thing for a minimum of 17 seconds at a time, which sounds like nothing, but it can be quite hard, especially with today’s distractions, the more often you do that, 17 seconds at a time, the more often you’re going to raise your energy and increase your ability to tap into flow state and to manifest.
(22:45):
So that’s the way that I do gratitude, and it just sets me up amazingly for the rest of the day.
(22:52):
And I’m going to share one more with you. Smile. Smile at everybody you see. Keep smiling. And if you don’t feel like smiling, fake it till you make it because it will elevate your mood. And if you are happy, you are 13% more productive and you need to be productive as an entrepreneur.
Dr. Tom DuFore (23:08):
Thank you so much for sharing those. And sometimes some of those things, especially the gratitude and smiling, it’s a very simple thing. It doesn’t cost you anything. It’s easy to do. And at the same time, it’s also hard keeping the discipline, especially if you’re not in the habit of doing that currently, or it’s maybe not as… Doesn’t come as naturally. So it’s more challenging than what it may appear to be.
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (23:35):
For two reasons. You’re either not feeling great. So of course when you don’t feel great, those are actually the times you need those strategies more than anything, but you don’t want to do it. Or when things are going really well, sometimes you just take it for granted. So you drop the habits that actually got you there in the first place.
Dr. Tom DuFore (23:51):
Well, Dr. Rana, the final question we ask every guest is, “What does success mean to you?”
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (23:57):
Yeah. And I will tell you, that has changed. But I’m now in my 50s. There’s a reason for it. Success to me is about having a feeling of fulfillment every day and making an impact on every single person that I meet in whatever capacity. And if I enjoy that success, I know that all the other tangibles, like the amount of money I earn every month and seeing my business grow is inevitable. So I think it’s kind of starting backwards of how I want to feel, and that’s what success is to me, that true inner bubbling joy. Because when I have that, I can achieve anything. That tagline for NAIL-IT, achieve the ultimate.
Dr. Tom DuFore (23:57):
Fantastic.
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (23:57):
That’s what it’s about.
Dr. Tom DuFore (24:45):
Fantastic. Well, as we bring this to a close, Dr. Rana, is there anything you’re hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Dr. Rana Al-Falaki (24:54):
I think we’ve covered it. I think if you haven’t got the message already, it’s work on yourself more than anything else because every single thing in life starts with you. You plant a seed, it grows into a shrub, it grows into a tree, and then it grows roots. And so when you’re growing a business and also a life, because it’s not just about business, it is about having really, really solid roots. So when you get that wind blowing, when you get those storms, you don’t fall down. And that only starts by investing in yourself.
Dr. Tom DuFore (25:34):
Dr. Rana, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. And let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways.
(25:42):
So takeaway number one is when she said that the world of business is built around your relationships with others. And to me, my takeaway is based off of her NAIT-IT system and leadership development, your relationship with others depends upon your relationship with yourself, and it starts with developing that relationship with you, which her system does.
(26:04):
Takeaway number two is the NAIL-IT leadership system that she talked about. And so let’s go through the acronym real quick. N is for needs, and it’s the foundations of success about yourself. A is for attitude and I is integrity. L is for limitless. The second I is for intuition. And then T is for tangibility, which is digging deep to turn your dreams into a reality. And I like how she had this AAA, the aim, act, and attain as part of that tangibility.
(26:36):
Takeaway number three is when she shared in her Multiplier that she learned to set boundaries and say no. And as a leader, sometimes that can be the hardest thing to do, and yet the most important thing to do. And I know I have challenges and struggled with that at times myself.
(26:55):
And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So today’s win-win comes from the end of the episode when Dr. Rana said you need to work on yourself more than anything else, because everything in your life starts with you. From the second you wake up till the moment you go to sleep, it starts and ends with you. And so spending a little time to focus on developing yourself as a leader, as a professional, as a person, I think is going to make a big difference not only for you, but all of those people that you’re connected with.
(27:33):
And so that’s the episode today, folks. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.
