How a Hurricane Led the CEO of Homefront Brands to Franchising

Jeff Dudan, a former college athlete at Appalachian State University, never imagined that a natural disaster would be the catalyst for his successful career in franchising. After a hurricane struck South Florida in 1992, Dudan responded to a call for help from a former employee, leading him into the insurance restoration and disaster response industry. This experience marked the beginning of a journey that would eventually culminate in the creation of AdvantaClean, a franchise with 240 locations across 37 states.

On a recent episode of the “Meet the Zor” podcast, hosted by 1851 Franchise Founder and Publisher Nick Powills, Dudan reflects on the difficult decisions he made — including selling a successful business to fully commit to franchising — and how those choices paved the way for AdvantaClean’s growth. Dudan also discusses his current role at Homefront Brands, where he emphasizes the value of creating a supportive infrastructure for franchisees and the long-term vision of building a 100-year company.

A summarized transcript of Dudan’s interview with Powills has been included below. It has been edited for clarity, brevity, and style.

Nick Powills: So Jeff, how did you accidentally fall into franchising? I know your backstory, but I think it's a good start to where our discussion is going to go. What's your franchise accident story?

Jeff Dudan: Well, yeah, we all have it, Nick, and thanks for having me on. I really fell into franchising after being a college athlete at Appalachian State University and starting a painting business. In 1992, a hurricane hit South Florida, and one of my previous employees called me and said, ‘Hey Jeff, we've got this huge hurricane down here. We need all the help we can get. I know you guys are running a business up there in beautiful Boone, North Carolina. Can you come down and help us?’

So my business partner and I went down there. We cut our teeth in the insurance restoration and disaster response business in 1992 and '93. I recognized that many of the responders were franchise companies — ServePro, ServiceMaster, Paul Davis Systems. First General Services was a dealership model at the time, and that’s the one I got affiliated with for a little bit as an employee. Then three business partners and I moved up to Central Florida in 1994 and started a business that would eventually turn into AdvantaClean, which I sold some 24 years and 11 months later with 240 locations in 37 states. 

I moved back up to North Carolina in 1995 to get married and start our second location. We didn’t franchise until the mid-2000s after I bought out my last partner. I brought in some consultants and really committed to the franchise model at that point. We sold our company stores in 2006, '07, and '08 in Orlando; Greenville; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; and Charlotte, North Carolina under the franchise model to make sure we understood franchising and to build our franchise chops. Then we launched to the market in 2009, and I sold the business 10 years later in 2019.

Powills: When you think back on that, obviously it was a journey and obviously the end of the story is fantastic. You exited a business and you've continued on in franchising. But how hard was it?

Dudan: Well, I got to tell you, I never realized that everything takes twice as long, is twice as hard and is twice as expensive as you think it is. One of the things I would say is that I didn't get franchise-experienced people around the business early enough. We actually went and downloaded the FTC rule and wrote our own FDD [franchise disclosure document]. We were so silly about trying to do things our way. I know I could have moved a lot quicker and maybe gone a lot bigger if I had brought in some of these great people in the industry a little earlier. But yeah, it was really difficult.

To franchise the business, we needed to burn the boats. We were working in Hawaii, Canada, the Caribbean, chasing all these storms, and our businesses were growing locally. But a lack of focus always leads to a lack of greatness. There was no focus on the franchise program I was dreaming about; we just kept doing more business. So I said, the only way I'm ever going to be able to commit to franchising is if I sell our existing businesses under the franchise model. So I took a perfectly good, large, tens of millions of dollars a year business, and I kind of threw it away in favor of a potential future in franchising.

Powills: When you think about the greatest success stories in business, or the ones that build wealth for families, they tend to start from this bootstrapping moment. In franchising, there's this hurdle at the front end because we have these giant fees that now eliminate all the grit and hustle. How have you navigated that? And is there a way to still discover grit and hustle when the fees are so high today?

Dudan: Yeah, look, it's all about time, right? Let's take it back to the franchisor. It took me literally 24 years from the first time I started thinking about franchising the business to get it to a scale where it was saleable. Many founders of franchise companies do it over many years or a decade. You grit, hustle, work closely with your early franchisees and keep them close. But you're really not going to be royalty self-sufficient until you have 40 to 60 owners operating, depending on the model — I'm mainly talking about service brands. And you’re not going to be truly profitable until you get 80 to 100 owners, something that private equity might want to buy.

How do you get from the beginning to that point? You have to invest ahead of revenue to build the systems for your franchise owners, which is really expensive. A lot of people don’t realize how costly it’s going to be, and that’s a big challenge — making sure you’re properly resourced and have the courage to invest ahead of revenue to help your franchisees succeed. That’s one reason we’ve been able to go so fast. In under two years, we’ve got over 200 franchise owners, 600 territories operating across Homefront Brands, and we’re still doing about 10 deals a month.

From the franchisee perspective, yes, you can start from your bedroom with nothing, but you don’t have websites, a tech stack or customer acquisition marketing skills. Customer acquisition is very dynamic today, and we talk with our franchise owners about being flexible. Technology evolves quickly, especially in customer acquisition. Joining a franchise allows a business owner to start day one with all of those things in place.

One of our core tenets in franchising is centralizing everything that can be centralized. We’re a big call center company — there’s no reason for 200 owners to each have two people answering phones when we can handle that for the entire network — book appointments, provide metrics — and do it better at a nominal fee.

We focus on creating simplicity for franchise owners so they don’t have to learn how to manage Facebook and Google ads, or train call center staff. From day one, they’re building a team, introducing themselves to the community, selling, fulfilling and collecting money. Everything at Homefront Brands is about helping franchise owners start well so they can continue well.

We’ve moved all of our business development startup activities before training, so franchise owners in training are already booking or selling jobs before they even come to training. If something doesn’t start well, it rarely goes well. By getting our franchise owners to revenue quickly, they have a much better chance of hitting their numbers in the first year.

Powills: What you’ve just described — building infrastructure — is exactly what creates larger exits for the brands under you. Everyone should be building businesses to exit. I’m sure if you could go back 30 years and tell Jeff to put all this structure in place, it would have sounded really expensive. But today, you understand the potential impact for both franchisees and yourself as the franchisor.

Dudan: Yeah, we're definitely too stubborn to fail here. We're building a deep foundation, but it depends on what you're building and your strategy. At Homefront Brands, a four-inch slab might be enough for a single brand, but we're putting in deep infrastructure. We're a Microsoft shop, and every point of data across all six of our brands ends up in the same data lake. We use business machine learning and intelligence to analyze that data — something typically only billion-dollar companies achieve after decades.

We set this up from the start because we aspire to have a smaller number of large franchisees. The brands we selected have large average unit volumes, and we know our customers need a certain margin profile. While some businesses can do $200,000 or $300,000 a year, our owners aren't interested in that. Instead, we have a large cohort of wealthy individuals, family offices and private equity people looking to diversify and expand their portfolios. They’re fine investing in a franchise business as long as it’s scalable and worth their time.

Private equity has even started targeting service companies. If you can build a $10 million service company, they'll find several operators, put them together, and write a nice check. This could have all started with a $50,000 franchise fee.

Think about this: Houses are expensive now, and it's tough for kids to buy a starter home for less than $400,000 in many markets. We made our money when houses were under $100,000, and we built equity from that. With the housing market high and the stock market volatile, more people are recognizing that businesses are a high-class asset. They want to take advantage of the tax code, create economic freedom and build equity. Franchising, with the right group of people, is a great way to build scalable and saleable assets that are businesses.

Powills: I think part of the reason a buyer stays in the funnel so long is because they don’t understand franchising. Most franchisors aren't addressing this gap. Given this, do you see the lack of education as a potential gap that could be closed? As a multi-brand franchisor, your resources for education should be greater than that of the broker community.

Dudan: Yeah, I think that’s a great point. It’s very nuanced. People don’t understand what franchising is or how pervasive it is. There are over 800,000 franchise establishments, and about 9 million people in this country are employed by or with a franchise organization at some level. That’s one in every eight employed people. Small businesses make up 46% to 60% of our GDP, and franchising, while a smaller subset, is still significant within that. It’s a massive community — 99% of people are employed in small businesses.

Franchising is a very pervasive business model. It’s not a business; it’s a business model. The NFL, for example, is a franchise. One thing we’ve implemented, which has been extremely effective, is a Monday evening call called Homefront Foundations. If you’ve been in process with us for one day, you get invited. I spend an hour on the call with our president of franchising, and we usually have about 20 people on it. The candidates introduce themselves, and I dedicate a 10-minute segment to explaining what franchising is. I tell them, ‘You’re working with our development directors, and you might not get this, but I want to tell you from our perspective what franchising is.’

I explain that franchising is a multi-tenant, leverage model. It’s transitional, transformational, and has a community aspect. I also share stories and anecdotes, like how Jerry Richardson, the founder and initial investor of the Carolina Panthers, quit the NFL as Johnny Unitas’ tight end, bought a Hardee’s, ended up with 400 Hardee’s restaurants, and then invested in real estate, insurance, and eventually the Carolina Panthers, which is another version of a franchise.

When people first get exposed to or contacted by someone representing a franchise, those people often have an agenda and may or may not take the time to educate them on the broader landscape of franchising. I think that can be a miss.

Powills: You’ve had great success with Advantaclean, and you’re now franchising your franchise with Homefront Brands. The widget is irrelevant — you have the system and process down. So, in case a candidate is watching, what’s the vision for Homefront Brands moving forward?

Dudan: When I recruited our management team, I said, 'I’m looking for a 10-year commitment, and I’m willing to make it worth your while.' I’ve been generous with participation in these companies because I wanted to give people the opportunity to build something meaningful. We needed great leaders — president, VPs, directors, executives — and we went out and got them.

We’re building a 100-year company with a 2037 BHAG [big hairy audacious goal] of $5 billion in system-wide sales. We want to give a million books to children, partnering with Ben and Kenny Carson and Carson Scholars to build reading rooms around the country. Our passions are threefold: children, veterans (we’re partnered with Operation Homefront) and creating economic freedom and financial security for families on Main Street USA.

This commitment is crucial, especially given the challenges of the past few years. When money leaves Main Street and families, you end up in a situation like Venezuela. We’re focused on expanding the reach and relevance of the franchise sector responsibly, so families can build something for themselves.

I needed a compelling reason to come back after selling my company at 50. Once you commit, you’re all in — like football. You can’t recontract; you have to tackle, hit and run. You’re responsible for your franchise owners, who trust you with their money, and you must stand up for your actions, always prioritizing their best interests.

What I like about our executive team is that we all share the philosophy that franchise owners are at the center of every decision. At our offsites, we even set a plate representing the franchisee, reminding us that what happens inside the four walls of their business is all that matters.

Powills: Here’s what I love about your vision — I asked you about Homefront’s vision, and it wasn’t about selling a billion units or specific brand goals. You talked about giving back to children, veterans and franchisees. That’s a strong North Star. I’d imagine, looking back, these are philosophies you’ve developed over time — life experiences that now guide you.

Dudan: Yeah, absolutely. One hundred percent. At the end of the day, that’s what success is. If you can accomplish those things, then you’re going to be fine. But if you lose focus on what really matters along the way, it leads to bad decisions and hesitation when investments need to be made. You asked me earlier, and I saw you chuckle, but you have to be too stupid to fail. You’ve got to be stupidly committed to what you know is right and to your philosophies. Whatever it is that you decide, you’ve got to be all in.

Watch the episode above or on YouTube.