Paul Dorsey’s Journey from Paper Boy to Jantize America CEO and Franchise Innovation

Anthony Codispoti : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Paul Dorsey, CEO of Jantize America. They have been providing commercial janitorial services for over 28 years with a mission to develop long-term relationships through high-quality cleaning and exceptional customer care. Their commitment to being trusted custodians for businesses nationwide has helped them earn a place in Entrepreneurs 2025 franchise 500 list, recognizing their growth and success across multiple locations. Now under Paul’s leadership, the company focuses on supporting franchisees, emphasizing an affordable path to ownership and a high success rate. Paul’s background includes years of experience in franchise sales and business development, where he has served in various roles at prominent franchise systems. This journey has given him the expertise to guide new entrepreneurs as they grow within the Jantize network.

His story will inspire anyone looking to turn big dreams into real results. And before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part, the program actually puts more money in the employees’ pockets and the companies too. As an example, one recent client with 450 employees boosted net profits over $412,000 a year. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, CEO of Jantize America, Paul Dorsey. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Paul Dorsey  : Is there sound effects in the background, Rana? Wow, because that were, some accolades, man.

Anthony Codispoti : And that was all you. So let’s get into it and let’s hear more about it. Get

Paul Dorsey  : that right off of ChatBT or did you go to my website or LinkedIn, right?

Anthony Codispoti : We did our research. I’ve got a crack team that’s behind all this.

Paul Dorsey  : It all sounds good, but I’m just a regular guy, right?

Anthony Codispoti : Well, let’s hear about that regular guy kind of coming up through the ranks. How did you first get your start in, I guess, both the cleaning industry as well as the franchising space, Paul?

Paul Dorsey  : Andrew, I want to make sure that we’re crystal clear, Anthony, that I’m not in the cleaning industry. I am a franchise or I sell and support actual area developers or master franchises, who buy major territories like a football city, whether it be Tampa or Cincinnati or Charlotte or Atlanta. Those area developers then sub-franchise and they award local unit franchisees within their territories. So we have seven, eight area developers, a couple hundred and a 350 or so unit franchisees up and down the East Coast from Sarasota, Florida all the way up to Springfield, Massachusetts where my brother runs a territory up there.

And then going to the franchise, I think of myself more of an IT guy. We had our area developer call. We have our own Jan Man, our ChatBT, we’re all the dynamic is there. We have our own Jan View proprietary software, but the franchisees, the area developers can look at their billing, their credit, their collections, their training, all these things set up. So going for even more than a franchise or I think of myself as an IT company.

Anthony Codispoti : So this is really interesting. So the model here is that you’ve got, would you say seven or eight of these master area developers?

Paul Dorsey  : Yes. So that terminology too, master franchise area developer, regional director, they’re a number of different names for that guy or that gal.

Anthony Codispoti : And is that person sort of acquiring all the master rights there? Or they’re actually an employee of the franchise or and then that’s their responsibility to sell out the rights.

Paul Dorsey  : They’re purchasing the territories. The territories are 75 to $95,000. So if you want Tampa or you want Dallas, then I’ll teach you how to create residual income streams by awarding the local unit franchisees. So my area developers don’t actually pay royalties. They collect royalties. Interesting.

Anthony Codispoti : So they’re not the ones who are at your master area developers. They’re not hiring the crews. They’re not going out and finding the customers. They’re finding people who want to buy a smaller section of their territory and set up their own business to go find the clients and hire the cleaners.

Paul Dorsey  : Well, you’ve done your research. Yes. So the area developers put an ad on Google or online or franchise.com and says, be your own boss. Own your own janitorial business. The customers are guaranteed. From that, they meet with the area developer.

The area developer needs a small office, small executive office with a conference room that they can meet with potential unit franchisees. And don’t get me wrong. There’s rules and regulations and franchising governed by the Trade Commission. But in a nutshell, the unit franchisees pay the area developers an upfront commission for X amount of business.

And the average initial investment is, say, $15,000, $20,000. Well, Robert Chess in Raleigh, North Carolina, two hours and a half up the road where my 94-year-old mother lives independently, Robert has actually awarded 100 unit franchises in Raleigh, North Carolina proper.

Anthony Codispoti : A hundred individual franchises within one’s metropolitan area. Yes. So what does the geographical geofence look like for an individual franchise in the city of Raleigh?

Paul Dorsey  : I want you to go a little bit higher. So it’s $128 billion, but with a B, $128 billion a year industry. And that was before COVID. Now it’s probably even more because everybody’s using somebody to clean that medical facility, to clean that logistic center, to clean that gym, to clean that office building, to clean that convenience store, to clean that restaurant. There’s so much business out there. And that would go back to the area developer hires two sales guys. The average sales guy is out knocking on doors, bringing in the customers for the unit franchisees to service. The unit franchisees are great customer service and great operational people. They do no sales. The area developer is a sales and marketing machine.

Anthony Codispoti : Interesting. That area developer has to bring in all the business for his franchisees.

Paul Dorsey  : And then my office, in the back of the house, taking care of billing the credit, the collections, those hassle and aches. So everybody has a vested interest, whether it’s $10,000 or $70,000, to make sure that customer is totally satisfied.

Anthony Codispoti : Oh, interesting. Okay. So you’re also not only you taking the sales component off of the plate of the individual franchisee, you’re also taking off the billing and the collections part of it, which is a huge administrative headache.

Paul Dorsey  : It’s again, it’s all automated. It’s AI 10 years ago. I know more about AI and automation than most of the IT guys do.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay. So what does it mean to have an individual franchise in the city of Raleigh? It’s not like I’ve got this five block area then, right? It’s like, I’m just another one of the people that the master area developer is sending business to. Is that right? And it could be working in any part of the city.

Paul Dorsey  : The unit franchisees do not buy a territory, they buy customers. So you could literally have one unit franchisee cleaning the Toyota dealership. And right across the street, you have a different franchisee, Susie cleaning the Ford dealership.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay. Say more about, because you said, you know, I really view myself as an IT person, say more about the technology infrastructure that you guys have in place.

Paul Dorsey  : In the Jan view, takes care of all the billing, the credit, the collections. It’s a proprietary software that I’ve been working on for the probably past 10 years with different IT wranglers from Wells Fargo, QuickBooks, where I’ve merged all so the unit franchisees could log on their cell phone and see all their customers, who’s paid, what’s paid, what’s the deductions. There’s training videos. There’s everything else they need to use to run their business on the Jan view app. It’s the only one in the industry.

Anthony Codispoti : And you’ve been in sort of the industry for a bit, right? You came up Janikang and Jan Pro Systems. What were the experiences like there? And how did that help kind of shape the approach that you take there, Jan Tides?

Paul Dorsey  : Well, it’s a common sense approach. I came up in the newspaper business. I was a paper boy, right? Delivered over 500 papers every day in Springfield, Massachusetts. Now, it wasn’t just me and my dad in the back of the station wagon. Well, I hired Koei and Tom Stang and McFarland and Frazier, gosh, I remember and Stange and all the rest of the guys, they would all deliver 25 papers. Springfield Republican would go collecting.

That was the best part. 12 years old or 15 years old and going, go and collecting tonight on Friday night. And all the neighbors would pay me 10 cents a paper times five days a week or 20. Then I’d give Koei and Stange and Frazier and Smitty all 15 cents. So I was making 10 cents in all the papers they do. I need nothing about business or royalties, but I certainly did the same thing with the bubble gum.

We’d go to Rice’s fruit farm and buy the fireballs for a bag for $2 and I’d sell them, eat two for 25 cents at the playground. So it kind of goes all back to, are you born a leader or can you train a leader? Are you born an entrepreneur or do you train yourself to be an entrepreneur? So it goes, but you know, so you were born.

Anthony Codispoti : You were born a leader.

Paul Dorsey  : Well, with six older brothers and three older sisters, you think so, right? So you were the youngest of 10? Yes. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti : And so you took your share

Paul Dorsey  : of and they all work for me now. They’re all in the business. They all work for me now, right? The lawyer, the CPA, all those guys are now working for the entrepreneur.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay. That’s fun. Okay. So how did the opportunity to join Jantai’s come about?

Paul Dorsey  : I was then waiting tables and bartending. Another position throughout college where I took as, that was my business. And I also realized somewhere along the line where, gosh, I could make 15%, we used to work our butts off. Like your water would never go low when I was waiting. And we were lucky to get 15%. That was a great tip. But nowadays it’s automatically 32%.

Well, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, right? Tip was supposed to be to ensure prompt service. So I was waiting tables, even those tables I took as my own business. I had four tables each night.

Right. And sometimes I had to pay rent or I had to do what I had to do to pay my bills. And I never forget one night, I had the four tables that were actually in the middle of the dining room at Barley and Rye down in South Charlotte. And each time the hostess would walk over to my table with a four or a six or two people, she’d say something to them. And then she would actually point to the window where there was booths. And then people would go to the booth.

So one night I got to her and I listened because I really needed to pay my rent that next week. And the hostess said to the customers, the guests that were coming to dine, do you want this table or would you rather have the booth over here? 95% of the people all went to the booth. Again, my rent was due. I had to go to the, I told the voice, the hostess at the time, I’m afraid of her name, Lisa, can you go or try this, go to the booth and say, do you want this booth or would you rather have this nice table with the chandeliers signing it? And then what happened? 95% of the people wanted to sit under the chandelier in the middle of the restaurant.

They didn’t want the squeaky booth. So another aha moment that it’s how you present or the questions that you ask the people is where you get the answers. I know I didn’t answer your question. I told the silly story, but that was certainly the process behind it. So I was waiting tables. I saw an ad or of course, oh, Paul, you should be a sales guy. Sales guy, what is that? I am a sales guy. I’m selling.

Perry water and and and steaks. I saw an ad in the show observer in the Sunday paper and it said outside sales person. I went interviewed, interviewed, suffered the job and they said, I actually said, well, what’s an outside sales person?

And the manager said, well, you go outside and you knock on doors. And then you’re going to pay me. They’re like, we’re going to pay you $350 a week plus commissions. And of course, it’s like getting a tip at the restaurant, but it’s not 15 percent on $100. It’s 15 percent on $1,000. Wow, that’s a commission.

Anthony Codispoti : Low and you were you were interested. This is very intriguing.

Paul Dorsey  : Not only was I interested because guess what, Anthony? There was no cell phones. Right. We I don’t think we even had a pager and again, I was what are we talking about?

Anthony Codispoti : Like late nineties early nineties.

Paul Dorsey  : Yes. Early nineties. Okay. Maybe late in the and I said to myself, so wait, you’re going to pay me to go outside and I could play golf. No one would know. I could go to the mall.

I could sleep in. No one will know. And I still remember Terry Brady, the manager of that location said to me, I won’t know tomorrow, Paul, but I’ll know in 30 days. Good point. All right. What do you mean?

You’ll know. Well, because Terry was a professional and Terry know his KPIs, key performance indicators. So if I followed the KPIs, Kerry knew I was going to close deals. First year, I sold over a million dollars worth of commercial cleaning contracts in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Anthony Codispoti : But what was your goal? What was the?

Paul Dorsey  : I had no goal. I had no goal. I wanted to pay my rent and play golf on Friday.

Anthony Codispoti : What was the goal the company set for you? What was their expectation?

Paul Dorsey  : $3,000 a month worth of new business month after month after month. 3000.

Anthony Codispoti : Yes. So you surpassed that by a fair margin. Yes. Okay. And why? What were you doing that was so impactful? So I was following.

Paul Dorsey  : I was then I learned what a script and I learned what a system is. Save the system. Follow the brownie recipe and those brownies are delicious. If you deviate from the recipe of those brownies, they taste like bad.

Anthony Codispoti : And so what did you learn about that system? What was maybe a component that kind of surprised you at the time where you look back on it now and you’re like, oh yeah, like that’s really common sense. And it was so critical to me closing those deals.

Paul Dorsey  : You need to put the effort in and let the cookies bake in order from the come out like Nana’s. And if you go back to remember Nana’s cookies, he didn’t just stick them in the oven and pulled them out. She had to let them cook for a while. And whether it was the timer on the stove or a little timer on the side, she had you had to let the process work.

You had to let the process work because nothing good happens overnight. But you also have to follow the process. You have to knock on 25 doors a day. You have to call 25 people.

You got to go to a chamber meeting. You got to do all the things that’s set up in the process that’s proven success going back to the franchise. Whether it’s McDonald’s or Jiffy Lou or Jantais America, we all have a step by step by step system. Save yourself time, energy and money if you follow the system.

Anthony Codispoti : So I want to go back to that cookies in the oven kind of analogy. Are you saying like, hey, you met with somebody today. You sort of explained the service, dropped off a car, whatever that sort of that first step is. Maybe you’re not like calling them again right away the next day. Maybe there’s like a waiting period. Like you follow up in a week or two weeks. Is that what I’m hearing you say?

Paul Dorsey  : What we say at Jantais America is we don’t want to be your janitorial company. We want to be your next janitorial company.

Anthony Codispoti : Say more about that. Why is the word next so important there?

Paul Dorsey  : Because everybody’s using somebody, right? Whether it’s a podcast or whether it’s health benefits or what are this, everybody’s using somebody and I’m happy with my guy, but I might not be happy with them tomorrow or the next day or 12 months from now.

Anthony Codispoti : So you want to come up with a way or you have come up with a way to sort of say top of mind with these people that are already using somebody else so that when eventually their current provider makes them unhappy, that you guys are, let’s call Jantais.

Those are the guys that we’re going to give the next shot at. Yes. Okay. And how do you do that? Is it like a monthly follow up or are you mailing them things? Or what’s that process?

Paul Dorsey  : Yes, it all goes back to the IT and the process and the AI that we have set up through our CRMs and other systems. And whether it’s a phone call or it’s an email or it’s a George stop by with some donuts or whatever it is. Yes. We want to be the next janitorial service.

Anthony Codispoti : Got it. Okay. So you’re doing outside sales and which company was this at the time? Was this Janiking? It is. It was. And so you were there for, I don’t know, maybe five or six years. And then you moved on to be the sales director at Janpro Systems. Tell us about that.

Paul Dorsey  : I would have never, I would have never less Janiking. I would still be working at Janiking, maybe in Dallas with Jim Cavanaugh and Jerry Crawford, who is still a great friend who passed away. Janiking is actually the world’s largest franchisor. It’s not subways, but it’s just not sexy to say, oh, Janiking. Janiking, God bless them. They have an area developer. They call the master franchises in every single major city of the world. Wow. Going back to this concept works to have area developer ever be working at their strengths.

I was at Janiking and I sold great account. It’s called the Cameron Brown Building. And anybody who’s listening and know Charlotte, they know the Cameron Brown Building was the old lawyer’s office. It’s still down there, but it’s dwarfed by about, I don’t know, 40 stories now with all the other buildings around. Cameron Brown Building was a contract. It cost $50,000 a month to clean that building.

Wow. We scrubbed the floors. We dumped the trash. Again, you’re changing labor for dollars, laborers for dollars. They got to pay somebody. Also the other story, hey, the Panthers or the football team, they can go on strike. The Hornets or your basketball team, they can go on strike. But if the janitors and the trash collectors go on strike, you’re going to have problems. Right?

Anthony Codispoti : Oh, we’ve seen it. We’ve seen it before. I mean, there are cities across the world where you’ll see that there are major strikes in this area and things deteriorate pretty quickly. People don’t like their trash piling up. Right.

Paul Dorsey  : It’s not sexy. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the millionaire next door, the guys who get involved and understand the concept. Never would have left Janney King. At that time, I was also a straight commission guy. No one was paying me 350 bucks a week anymore. I was, if I don’t eat, if I don’t close, I don’t eat, but I was closed in $10,000, $15,000 a month for the business month after month.

I was supposed to get 100% of the first month of everything that closed. The deal was closed, customer started up, and I went to my managers and I said, pay me. Well, they didn’t pay me. And they made up all this silly excuses and this and that, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they jerked me around. They didn’t pay me. Like, come on, man, I’m doing all this business. You’re not going to pay me?

What’s that? Mention, if the managers and if that master franchise back in 1990 or ever it was, would have sat me down, Anthony, and said, Paul, I want to teach you a business. There’s a thing in business called cash flow. And you just sold that account for 40,000 bucks. And we’re going to resell that account for the franchisees, but I’m not going to have any cash flow in for two or three more months. And then I could pay or let me pay you 10,000 now and keep you and then a 10,000 tomorrow or 10,006 months from now, and then you’ll have a book of business all set. But instead of educating me and sitting me down and teaching me about cash flow and business, they wanted to try to screw me over.

Anthony Codispoti : Relationships don’t last very long.

Paul Dorsey  : That kind of foundation. But again, it goes back to the whole transparency that you go to a big franchise conference and the title is transparency for all, but then they’re hiding all this crap behind the mirror or behind the curtain. Guess what? The same time, here’s how small the franchising or your industry or the car dealership or anything is the next day, ring, ring, my phone ring. And it was Jack LaPoint, the founder of Jantro. Hey, Paul, I’m open in office in Charlotte. I want you to run it. I’ll pay you.

Anthony Codispoti : Had you met him before? No. Okay. He just knew of you by reputation. Yes.

Paul Dorsey  : What? And then Jack sat me down and he said, says nothing. It says little to do with the actual cleaning of those buildings or you knocking on doors. This is more about awarding those franchises. Let me show you how we award these unit franchises. At that time, I thought McDonald’s was actually owned by Ronald McDonald’s and all the corporation had no idea what a franchise was.

Anthony Codispoti : All right. So this is your first, your first introduction to the franchising world.

Paul Dorsey  : They’re not changed. I thought Applebee’s. I thought all the things were, no, they’re not changed. They have owner operators. And I learned all about franchising. Of course, now there’s been all those movies and more people are generally educated than the others, but it does go back to your misconception just because I have Jantized. I’m not sure it doesn’t mean I’m in the Jantro business. The guys at McDonald’s, they don’t buy those McDonald’s because they love the hamburgers or they go back there and can flip the fries. They buy those because they’re money making machines, just like an area developer or a master franchise. You want to build a money making machine that builds residual income streams. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti : So you were at Jantro Systems where you learned about franchising for the first time. You were there for probably about five years and learned all about sort of the franchising concept. And then somehow the door opened up for you to join Jantize. Is that what came next? And I wouldn’t ever left Jantro. And did they hose you too on your payments?

Paul Dorsey  : No, no, no, no. I learned about business ownership, but I was just an employee still. You continue even in franchising. You have all these employees trying to sell ownership of something that they could never buy or would never want to buy themselves. So it comes kind of like a little oxymoron.

What do you mean? You wouldn’t buy that doggy daycare franchise. Why are you trying to sell it to me? Which is the salesman’s creed.

I would never sell anything to anybody that I didn’t think was the best for them. Jack the point, Jantro taught me about business ownership. Even though I was doing it already as a paper boy and a waiter and a bartender and a sales guy, I never really understood and wanted to get into the equity of the business for the long haul or the short haul.

Jack or Bob, give me 2%, give me 3%, give me 4%, give me something that I have a vested interest because this is what I’m selling. But the carrot was continually dangled in my…

Anthony Codispoti : It was just, it was on that stick that just kept moving out further and further. So you couldn’t get to it.

Paul Dorsey  : Well again, that’s funny. Is it the carrot or the stick? Does everybody know what that means? The carrot or the stick? Explain.

Anthony Codispoti : The carrot is the inducement. The stick is the sort of the negative punishment.

Paul Dorsey  : No, the stick is just used so you can never reach it. You never get hit by the stick, do you?

Anthony Codispoti : Oh, you’re talking about it in a different way. Yeah, so the stick is holding the carrot out in front of you in this metaphor. And so yeah, you’re trying to get after it. But the distance between you and the carrot doesn’t ever close. And so that’s why you looked for other pastures and found janties.

Paul Dorsey  : Some people think the stick is made to spank them on, but it’s not. You can’t spank somebody in order to get something if they don’t want it. So that carrot and the stick analogy, did I use it or did you use it?

Anthony Codispoti : I think I botched it up first. So let’s set the record straight. The carrot was dangled in front of you and you couldn’t get to it. And so what happened next?

Paul Dorsey  : No matter how hard you hit me with the stick, I could never get it. But you never want to be hitting the mule or the person with the stick because that doesn’t work. And it goes back to that that person has to want it themselves. Is the analogy of the carrot and the stick.

Anthony Codispoti : So how did the doors open up for janties?

Paul Dorsey  : Sick of making money for everybody else and not having ownership of it my own. So I started searching around and searching around and learning more and more and more about franchising. I spoke to a lot of franchising guys back in the days, it was called a uniform franchise offering circular UFOC. I had to speak with some franchise attorneys and they had a fear factor. It’s going to cost me a couple hundred thousand dollars.

My first born child and if I do anything wrong, I could go to jail. And I think some of that stuff still goes along today. So in my search, I found Janties America and Jerry Grubowski, the founder in Livonia, Michigan where Jerry made his millions already with the dot com bubble of the early 90s. Remember that?

I do. Jerry had Jantai set up more like that franchise or franchise E model where the unit franchisees would come and invest that $20,000. They would then get a truck or a van and they would also learn how to do their own sales and marketing. Jerry and I met. I was like, Jerry, there’s a better way to do this. We could do it this way. We put that area developer in there.

We have area worker in this trance. He said, all right, whatever. Paul, that’s what you want to do. You can do it in Charlotte. Prove me wrong. Well, again, I opened the Charlotte territory and I sold 45 unit franchises within a short time period.

Anthony Codispoti : How did you do that back then? Was this like early 2006? Sunday paper.

Paul Dorsey  : We had little classified ads in Sunday papers or the weekly or the reminder or whatnot. Okay. Yes. And then 2006, that was probably Craig’s list. Okay. Free ads on Craig’s list and all those other things that are no longer successful. 2016, we did award another territory in the Tampa area. And myself and those two guys, Chris and Dean, we went to Jerry and said, hey man, we want to buy you out.

You’re sitting up in La Bonia and nothing’s happening. We want to grow this thing. We’re going to do this, that and the other thing. Bring in that technology edge that I was working on and we bought out Jerry.

Anthony Codispoti : And then you were able to put this model in a lot more geographical locations in the US.

Paul Dorsey  : Oh, wouldn’t that be nice? Okay. No, man. Anthony, I had not one, but I had two partners. As of today, we don’t sell any franchises where it’s a 50-50 split. There has to be somebody with at least 51% and somebody with 49%. I mean, being business and partnership, it’s like a marriage.

And now they say 60, 60, 60% of all marriages fail. God bless you. Thank you. I’ve been married for 25 years coming next Tuesday. I’ve been the highs and lows, more highs than lows of marriage, two kids.

But partnerships are tough. And then I want to say there was a going back to Nana’s cookies. Somebody’s hand was always in Nana’s cookies getting more and more cookies. And I’m like, come on, man. Your wife’s getting paid $70,000 a year to answer phones.

And I’m not easy, right? So there becomes some, I ended up buying out Dean and Chris and then moved everything back to Charlotte, started the National Expansion 2016-2018 is when we started to launch and bring on more area developers in those other territories.

Anthony Codispoti : And so what territories do you have right now? Where can we find you guys? Sarasota, Florida.

Paul Dorsey  : Atlanta. Greenville, Spartanburg, which is a small market, but it doesn’t matter the size of the territory because Guy has 70 unit franchisees down there and does, you know, $600, $700,000 a month worth of 90 janitorial services. Then we go to Charlotte, Greensboro with Bobby Roberts and Raleigh. Jump up to Springfield, Massachusetts, Hartford. My brother, Mark, runs that territory over to Tarek in Nashville, Sean in Louisville and Norma in Colorado Springs.

Anthony Codispoti : What is a typical sort of life cycle for a new master area developer? They come in, they put some money down with you. How long before this kind of is looking pretty rosy to them?

Paul Dorsey  : I don’t want to make any earnings claims, although I would say 12 months and we have some benchmarks and things, then they can talk to the other guys. Yeah, because going back to the system, it’s not a one man show. It’s a full time job to start to sell the unit franchises or award the unit franchises. And then you got to hire two sales guys out doing what Paul did 20 years ago, knocking on doors. Average sales guy still in history, should be ringing on $3,000 to $5,000 a month worth of new business month after month after month.

So they have to end of 12 months. I want the area developers doing at least 70, maybe close to $100,000 worth of monthly facility services. Thus, the area developer then collects a 9% royalty because they are a franchise or in their territory and a 7% management fee.

Or we call it support fee now, can’t manage anybody. So 16% of the gross revenue stays with that area developer. So 12 months break even 15 months profit.

Okay. And then you could grow, you can just have a calculator and do not want to make any earnings claims because there are rules and regulations. But you can talk to the other area developers, look at our franchise disclosure document and get all that information.

Anthony Codispoti : And if somebody is interested in exploring being one of these area developers, how do they go about doing that?

Paul Dorsey  : I mean, they could call me on my cell phone or they could call John and Fran Dev or Karen or Lavanya. The number here at Jantais is 704-503-7141. Although we also have a website, JantaisFranchise.com. And this is very important to Anthony because the end user, whether they’re getting that oil changed or they’re getting that hamburger or they’re getting their building clean or they’re getting their hair cut, they could care less about franchise. Matter of fact, some people get upset if you’re a franchise because their father bought a franchise or their father bought a distributor or they heard some horror stories about something else. So we really separate the whole end-use customer, Jantais.com from the whole employee ownership at JantaisFranchise.com.

Anthony Codispoti : Gotcha. So JantaisFranchise.com is where somebody can learn more about it. And who are the kinds of people that you’re looking for? What are their backgrounds typically? What are the personality traits? What do you like to see? You. You.

Paul Dorsey  : Right. An entrepreneur who’s kind of maybe doing his own thing for a while. He understands he’s out there, you know, getting business. He doesn’t have any reoccurring revenue streams and wants to understand residuals in the territory. And he can file. I don’t want you to have any sales because we’re sales trainers. I want you to have a step-by-step-by-step system for success.

Anthony Codispoti : So you’re not looking for a sales background. You’re looking for more of a business background. Oh, Empire Builder.

Paul Dorsey  : It’s an Empire Builder. Yes.

Anthony Codispoti : And so this is somebody who maybe doesn’t have sales experience, but they’ve got really good people skills.

Paul Dorsey  : Guy loves Greenville-Sparkberg. No sales experience. Now he’s the chairman of the Area Developer Council. Okay. And he’s eight, but he’s hired like three sales guys in Greenville. He’s got operations. He can manage people. Yes.

Anthony Codispoti : Got you. The people factor. Yeah. That’s important. Can you share an example, maybe of an innovation or a method that you’ve introduced since buying your partners out that has really improved the quality or efficiency in either the operations kind of for the cleaning people or just the overall franchise model?

Paul Dorsey  : Well, again, our motto is if it’s dirty cleaning. And your mom taught you how to clean. We’re not doing any high-level clean room, hospital cleaning. And don’t get me wrong, there’s airborne pathogens and all those things that the franchise users are trained upon. But our biggest is going back to what I mentioned before, the JamDue proprietary software. So with Jerry and Chris, we’re going to have to go, it’s so and so paid.

It’s so and so paid. So no, look at JamDue report. It’s right there. It updates at seven o’clock every night. Every time the customer pays, JamDue updates. So everything’s there. So it goes back to the transparency of accounting.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah. The technology that you’ve layered in there for the cleaning pieces, sounds like it’s a huge efficiency gainer. Of course. Where do you see this going? Where’s Jantai’s going in the next five years? What’s the future plans?

Paul Dorsey  : I mean, as I mentioned to the goal in the future is Jantai’s Taiwan. And that’s who was in my office last week. Because I don’t care whether you’re in Toledo or Tampa or Taiwan, wherever there’s an entrepreneur who wants to be his own boss, whether there’s an empire builder who understands scalability, this concept works. Because whether you’re in Tampa, Toledo or Taiwan, there’s so much business out there.

Anthony Codispoti : So you’re already looking international. I mean, Canada’s international. Are you there?

Paul Dorsey  : I’ve been in negotiations with some guys in Canada now. Although when we get confused with the area developer and master franchise, I believe that be a true master franchise to take over the whole country of Canada. We would change the flag to a maple leaf here and do some different things. He has Canadian currency, so the Jandu would have to be set up differently and stuff too. And he would then award the local area developers who would set up the unit franchisees. So yes.

Anthony Codispoti : Some different considerations as you move into different countries. But you’ve already got your eye on that kind of expansion.

Paul Dorsey  : Of course. And we already have the legal team and the support and the systems set up to do it again in Toledo or Tampa. I would rather grow in the Southeast because I keep mentioning Tampa or 15 area developers in Florida. So there’s a huge opportunity. No California, not going west unless there’s a West Coast guy.

Anthony Codispoti : Is it because you want to be able to physically visit with people and travel to be here?

Paul Dorsey  : We’re not just doing with them. Yes. But then again, there’s some strict franchise rules and regulations. There’s franchise registration states. We’re in the Southeast and we’re still shaking hands and doing business because we’re good, honest Bible Baptist guys who are going to take care of and be ethical. But there’s other times in franchising too. I just sold 100 franchises in California. Well, no, you didn’t. You can go to jail for that.

Anthony Codispoti : Why would you go to jail for selling 100 franchises?

Paul Dorsey  : Because they weren’t registered.

Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.

Paul Dorsey  : They get different rules there. Yes, the different rules of franchise registration states are. It’s similar to the selling stocks and bonds. You’ve got to be licensed. They have brokers now. There’s franchise brokers.

Oh, you guys don’t know. Not in these states you can’t. You have to have your real estate license. You can’t sell that house. You’re going to go through these classes.

Anthony Codispoti : Take a little bit of a detour here.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I was talking about you, man. I wanted to get to know you. The spotlight’s on you, man. But I want to hear because we’ve talked about. Actually it is. The sun is creeping right through my window.

Paul Dorsey  : Yeah. You’ve got a halo around your head there. But I want to hear about a challenge, personal or professional, that you’ve had to overcome in your life. Maybe something that, you know, almost took you down. What was that? How’d you get through it?

What did you learn coming through the other side? Which one do you want first? Whatever comes into your head. Sometimes it all kind of mingles. Exactly. Business challenge is the area developer, the master franchise.

The concept is so unique. Even if you get online and Google master franchise or area developer, there’s less than like half a percent. But if you go franchise, you’re going to have all these things. So the terminology is not used because you don’t want to be used. You don’t know what you don’t know.

So whatever is the opposite analogy of preaching to the choir, I’m spreading the gospel to unknown. And people are actually buying other franchises, whether it be the fence franchise, or it may be the cleaning franchise, or it may be the restoration franchise, or it may be the power washing franchise. And they don’t even know the area developer or the master franchise is available to them at a lower cost with much, much greater return on the residual royalties. They don’t know. And how many guys I spoke to, and there’s maybe some other videos out there, it’s like, if I only knew this. So again, it’s psychiatry that you don’t know what you don’t know. And you don’t know what I don’t know, and I don’t know what you don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready to share any of my personal.

Anthony Codispoti : Well, let’s go back to focusing on the business one then. So how do you kind of, how do you work through that? How do you address that?

Paul Dorsey  : I continue to speak with guys like you who may have a different audience that may be thinking of entrepreneurial strip and whatever it is. Maybe it’s a franchise, maybe they’re starting their own restaurant business, maybe they’re going to do a lemonade stand. If I could help anybody in your audience with my 20 years of experience and what I’ve done, even setting up a franchise, let’s go here, document that the lawyer still charged all this X amount and they copy and paste up.

So you have to know more about franchising than the lawyers know about franchising. And it comes from reading books and listening tapes and the education factor that you put into your position.

Anthony Codispoti : I mentioned reading books. You have a favorite, a book or a podcast. Something that has been really helpful.

Paul Dorsey  : Fire Stories is my favorite book, right? I’ve been listening for years now. Been so inspired. I called in and it’s like, I want to inspire some people, man. I love it.

We’re happy to have you here. But no, man, I’m a big, you know, the Audible’s been out. So I’m listening to books all the time.

The first one that came to my mind that you mentioned was certainly the Robert Keoxi Rich Dad Poor Dad series, which I think I read that 10 or 12 years ago. I still go back to that. You know, you get more about reading the book than you do listening to the Audible’s, but there’s still a lot of stuff you can listen to.

It’s called Automobile University. Don’t sit there and listen to the sports talk radio or the news talk BS. Put an Audible tape on about business and listen to it or motivation or whatever it needs to be. Leaders are readers. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti : What’s your superpower, Paul?

Paul Dorsey  : I’m just so, I’m so transparent and I’m so confident. And so I was actually called blunt because I questioned some of the things that they were doing and I came and I don’t know if it’s no fear or no care. There may be a little bit of both in there too. And I was in the meeting. I bluntly asked them, please explain this to me.

What are you going to do from there? Here’s a great example too. I was at a franchise convention and this was the franchise transparency in franchise. I was honored to be on a panel and up there was the ice cream guy, the sign guy, the restaurant guy, and I think I was up there. And somebody was a broker meeting and one of the brokers said, can I see, can I see it with the UFOC?

So it has been dated. Can I see the UFOC? Ice cream guy says, well, no, no, you got to sign off on it. You got to make sure through and you can’t see it. The sign guy says, well, I’d send it to you, but it has all my secret recipes in there and the financials and everything else I don’t want to send. And the pizza guy said something else, but oh, you got to go for a beer broker.

You can’t have it, blah, blah, blah. And I said to the guy, what’s your email address on the stage? And Bill Smith at aol.com and I pulled up my blackberry and I sent it to him. And at the podium was one of the franchise attorneys from the IFA, the International Franchise Association, and they looked at me and they said, you can’t do that. Why?

Anthony Codispoti : Why is everybody else hesitating? And why did that attorney kind of wag his finger at you?

Paul Dorsey  : I don’t know. I looked at him and said, gosh, guys, I just did. And I’ll be at the bar having a beer if anybody really wants to get transparent in this convention for the rest of the weekend because I can’t deal with this BS because there is too much BS and sales and no one wants to tell anybody, thinking I’m going to hurt your feelings or step on your toes, whether it’s right or wrong. And you know what? That might even be some of the issues with the country we’re having right now. That’s the last one.

Anthony Codispoti : And that specific example that you have there, like, OK, so each of these different franchisors, they don’t want to share because it’s got some secret sauce or something they don’t want to share. But was there a legal reason that you’re not supposed to share it without collecting some information from people?

Paul Dorsey  : No, no, no. And they’re scared. Again, go start your own janitorial franchise. What do you want to know? If you can do it better than me, God bless you.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s what they’re afraid of, huh? Somebody’s going to take your blueprint and knock you off.

Paul Dorsey  : He’s going to steal my wall. Again, Mike said something. I think going back to how well I was raised with all my brothers and sisters, I left my bike outside one night and we got all up. So I got I got to wake up. I got to get my bike. I left it outside, mom, at the bus stop or something. And my mother said, Paul, if your bike gets stolen, that means that person needed it more than you. We can get another one.

Might not be the Schwinn, but it might be something else. And ever since that day, it’s like, I don’t care. Do you want anything of mine?

You don’t ask and I’ll give it to you. My brothers are like that, too. So again, I think it goes back to how people were raised and maybe it was a different.

Anthony Codispoti : It was your upbringing. That’s an interesting anecdote there.

Paul Dorsey  : You see that comedy too? Or the guy, remember when, you know, people would come ding dong ring the door, but Poppins. Poppins here, make some coffee. Everybody would hang out and stuff for an hour or so. I mean, now someone rings the doorbell. He’s ducking under the couch. I’m not here.

Anthony Codispoti : Well, yeah, we have to text somebody before we call them. Hey, I was thinking about calling you. It’s now a good time. And then you call them to ask, hey, can we come over to visit? Yeah, you don’t nobody does the pop in anymore.

That would be unusual. I’m popping in here. You’re popping in. Paul’s still a poppin inner.

Yeah. How about, you know, looking back at maybe something in your past where, man, at the time it felt like a mistake. It felt like a misstep. But now when you look back on that moment, it’s like, you’ve got some gratitude for it. Can it pushed you in a different direction? It propelled you to do something that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Well, I don’t recommend this to everybody,

Paul Dorsey  : but I was married for six months and I came home and told my wife, hey, honey, I quit my job and bought a franchise today. Can I get on your insurance for a little while? I had that conversation go over. Well, now, as I mentioned, it’s being a 26 years later and she’s been a full time mom taken for her kids for the last 18 years. So I think it’s worked out pretty well.

Anthony Codispoti : But did it really feel like a mistake at the time? Scary. Scary. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Dorsey  : Because but then I also learned later in life, too. And I mean, fear is a liar. Oh, say more about that. Well, again, I think it’s a great song, too. Fear is a liar. The fears of your psyche, your Holy Spirit’s going to tell you or not. This is fear.

You can’t do that. All the bad things are going to happen and not stay positive, which goes back to business ownership. Yeah, there’s going to be ups and downs, but you’ve got to stay positive. And I’ve come up with that, too. I’ve been seeing it so long. How are you doing? It’s great. Everything’s great. And then as you say, it’s great. You become great. Fake it till you make it. Yeah. And it works.

Anthony Codispoti : What’s the best decision you’ve ever made for your business?

Paul Dorsey  : Besides the podcast with you.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, that’s the obvious one. What’s the number two? Yeah.

Paul Dorsey  : The best decision I ever made for Jantai’s American, the business is our mission statement. And our mission statement is we’re a Christian company. Everything I do is to try. I had to put the word try in there later on to try to honor and glorify God. We want to build mutual, transparent relationships with my franchisees, area developers, vendors, customers, employees. We want to be honorable yet profitable. And we make mistakes and we realize mistakes.

We want to fix them right away. That’s probably one of the most proudest things. And if I could teach that and have all the franchisees and all the franchisees, employees continue to understand that we’re in it for the mission, not the commission, then more and more and more and more things come. So if you’re worried, oh, this accounts only, you know, 35% profit in this one. No, we’re workmanship. Whether you’re making five bucks or 500,000 bucks, your workmanship never changes. So it’s the mission. You got to be in it for the, and not in the commission. And you can tell really quick the sales guys who are in it for the commission. And I used to be one of those when I waited tables and needed my, or the guys who are in the mission, because I have a sincere desire to help other people. And if I can help somebody else get what they want, whether it be started genital business, whether it be started franchise, whether it be something else, then more and more people are going to help me get what I want. And that’s just how the world is.

Anthony Codispoti : Because all these, where does the driver for this mission come from? Where’s this fire? How did it start?

Paul Dorsey  : I got saved when I was 36 years old, man. And Jesus said, Hey, Paul, this is what I want you to do. And all those guys were getting screwed at these other places because they weren’t making any more money than they should be. This is where you can make a nice living and take care of your family and your friends. And this is where you do.

So I really believe it’s a passion of mine that I’ve been placed in this position as a guardian, which is the name of my LLC, to guard over and watch over some of these franchisees and some of these janitor guys who are being taken advantage by others.

Anthony Codispoti : How’d you get saved? What was that process? 1988, diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease.

Paul Dorsey  : I was always a good guy. As you can, it didn’t matter where I went to church. I had a great upbringing. I was a very good guy. And I knew about God and Jesus in my head.

And I knew and recited all the prayers in the Catholic church and never missed a Sunday as a ritual thing that I continued to do. Well, lo and behold, I had this health situation near death where I was on dialysis. And they had a chance to sit down and start to think about the afterlife and what am I really here for? So I started to read the Bible. And as I started and read with the book of John, it started to come alive. And all these questions that I had were like answered to me through my heart. Lo and behold, professed my faith in Jesus, believed that he died in the cross for my sins and that saved me. And ever since then, don’t get me wrong, I’m a sinner.

Said a cuss word the other day, had a beer at the golf course. So I all make mistakes, but it goes back to Jesus died for those sins for me 2000 years ago. And I believe that. And because of my belief in that, all these other things happen that have put me in this position today. And you’re reminding me of that now on this call too.

Because there’s been other times where I wouldn’t say anything. Here’s a story for you. We were cleaning the Charlotte Knights baseball seed and was $16,000 a month. And Jeff, one of my unit franchisees was down there. John wasn’t happy.

Wasn’t there’s peanuts on the floor. Hey, Jeff, we got to make some change. We met with a GM John of the Knights Castle. Jeff was in the conference room.

I was in the conference room and John looked at us. What’s that Jeff is your unit franchisee? He has to go or I’m going to cancel. Paul, you get I get somebody else in here this weekend. John left the room. Jeff’s like all upset. Give me one more chance, one more chance. And I hear this voice like does this guy know Jesus?

Speaker 3: Like man, I don’t have time for that right now.

Paul Dorsey  : This voice in my head again. Paul, you got to tell him about Jesus. I have time for this. I’m in the middle of Knights Castle. I got a $16,000 a month business that I got to save. And then I asked Jeff, it’s like Jeff, you ever met Jesus man? This isn’t about this.

Jeff professed he asked Jesus to come into his heart that day in the Knights Castle. Wow. Wow. That was Memorial Day or the day two days before Memorial Day, whatever that was, 2005 or 2006. You know what happened the next Monday? Jeff was in a tragic accident.

He died. Right. So the spirit moves me in ways that people think are crazy sometimes, even in this conversation. But if I don’t listen to the call of the spirit, well then I’m not who I say. That’s a powerful story.

Anthony Codispoti : I appreciate you sharing that, Paul. Thanks. And this all started for you with a health scare that had you thinking about larger purpose. Why am I here? What’s the afterlife? And it started you reading the Bible and something opened up inside of you.

Paul Dorsey  : Again, I’ve had more and more investors coming in at Jantos. Like, oh, you could be charging more.

Speaker 3: You could be charging 25%, 30% royalties like those other guys do. It’s like, I don’t need anymore.

Paul Dorsey  : And then I did an inner city mission on Saturday. So I’m the Bible quiz show guy. We drive these broken down buses and the broken around ministries. And we tell people about Jesus. And that’s what life is all about. And that’s why I’m in the position. So I’m able to tell those stories. That’s powerful. Yeah, it is. You’re going to make me cry, man.

Anthony Codispoti : There’s something more you want to say about that. You have another story along these lines? No, I’m good. Okay. We’ll wrap up with one, a bit of a softer question. You and I reconnect a year from now, Paul. And you’re really excited. You’re celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you’re celebrating one year from today?

Paul Dorsey  : Because of this podcast that we’ve had today, I’m able to express my relationship with Jesus in a better way without having to think I’m going to offend you or anybody else. Because at the end of my day or the end of my life, that’s all that really matters. And if it’s a year from now, I hope I’m able to tell more people that story and perhaps have a slight impact or plant a seed with some others to go read the book of John like I did or to look at some other things. So they too can have that same relationship as I. Paul. Kind of like the Shin-L-L-List movie, man. Is there one more?

Speaker 3: I can sell my phone. Is there one more? I’ll sell my computer because it doesn’t…

Paul Dorsey  : I don’t know. All this other… It just doesn’t matter.

Anthony Codispoti : Paul Dorsey from Jantai’s America. He’s in it for the mission, not the commission. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.