I'm sure you've heard of Mr. Appliance by now. No? How about Mr. Handyman? Ok, now I'm getting somewhere.
It seems like a lot of franchises have the name "Mr." in front of their names, lately. I'm not sure why. There's not too many franchise concepts with "Mrs." in front of them, though. (I wonder why not?)
Ladies, be the change...
Anyway, there's a brand new franchise concept that's just been launched, and it's a brilliant one...
This one's called Mr. SnowMan (I told you it was cool)
Earl Bives, The silver-bearded CEO, and the guy who came up with the name, but most importantly, the idea, talked with me via Skype, a couple of weeks ago, from his cozy home in North Pole, Alaska.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smailtronic/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Me: Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with me. So, for starters, can you tell me how you came up with your idea?
Bives: I'm sooo glad you asked! My little nephew Leopold and I, were sitting by the fire last June discussing entrepreneurship. He's always wanted to be a business owner, and I've done very well over the years with my oil drilling rigs. He shared with me how frustrating it always was for him to build a snowman from scratch. The Michigan winters (Where he's from) were great for snowman building, but the work was really hard.
Me: The work was really hard?
Bives: Yes, Joel. You must understand that I kind of spoiled my nephews and nieces-pretty much all the time. I couldn't stand when they had to do anything physical. I always made sure that there were folks around them to help them with their chores and such. That's just me. If you think I'm a little weird, too bad.
Me: (We took a two minute break during this part of the interview. Mr. Bives had to take a little break. I thought I heard him singing in the background. Something to do with "Silver And Gold?")
Bives: Thank you. I had to..well..never mind. You wouldn't understand. Anyway, I really wanted to help Leopold get into a business of his own, and that's why I chose him to run the show. We developed a service that would help folks build snowmen.
Me: I don't want you to think that I'm being rude here, but why the heck would someone pay to have a snowman built? Isn't the "building" part of it fun?
Bives: It used to be fun, Joel. Kids these days want to get on Facebook, and do meaningless texting with their friends.. Physical work, or even just going outside to have fun, is not happening too much, these days. Our service comes right to the house, and builds a custom snowman, or a snow-woman, or a snowdog-whatever, in 3 hours or less, guaranteed, for about $450.
Me: Interesting. Can franchise owners be located anywhere in the country?
Bives: Well, no, you idiot! Only in colder climes. What..do you think that we can make snow?
Me: Actually, yes, you could do that. That way, folks like John Sternal, who lives down in Florida, can get a snowman built for his little boy to see.
Bives: Great idea, Joel! Not. Snowmen don't belong in Florida. It's not right.
Me: So, what IS right, is selling franchises for $250,000, only to people North of the Mason-Dixon line, that will "sell" this much needed service.
Bives: Yes! Now you get it. And the best part Joel, is that it's seasonal. Franchisees only work 4 months out of the year! It just doesn't get any better than that.
Me: Well, I'm convinced.
(At this point, the interview abruptly ended. Our Skype connection failed, or something.)
So, what do you think? Am I the idiot, here? Or, can this franchise concept be "The One?"
In the meantime, I'm trying to get the contact information for Mr. Bives. It seems to have disappeared.
Here's some other franchise choices...
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