This podcast episode features an enlightening conversation with Max Emma, a distinguished leader who has transitioned from a corporate background into entrepreneurship. Max shares his remarkable journey from immigrating from the Soviet Union at the age of eighteen to establishing a successful franchise brokerage that assists individuals in pursuing their entrepreneurial aspirations. He emphasizes the significance of adaptability and resourcefulness in overcoming challenges, particularly in learning English and navigating the complexities of the corporate world. Throughout the discussion, Max elucidates his philosophy of servant leadership, highlighting his commitment to supporting clients by offering free services and sharing resources to ensure their success. This episode serves as a profound testament to the resilience required in leadership and the importance of fostering a nurturing environment for growth and opportunity.

The Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast delves into the compelling narrative of Max Emma, a distinguished entrepreneur who has traversed the challenging journey from his origins in the Soviet Union to establishing a successful career in the United States. At the age of 18, he embarked on a new life, leaving behind his childhood and friends, armed only with the support of his family. Emma's resilience and determination are evident as he recounts his experiences of learning English through innovative methods, including engaging with credit card companies to practice conversational skills. This episode not only highlights his personal growth but also emphasizes the importance of adaptability in overcoming obstacles. Furthermore, we explore Emma's transition from the corporate sphere to entrepreneurship, where he now operates a franchise brokerage, assisting individuals in realizing their aspirations of business ownership. His brokerage offers an extensive portfolio of over 600 franchises, with services provided at no cost to candidates. Emma’s narrative encapsulates the essence of the American Dream, underscoring the significance of perseverance, strategic thinking, and the willingness to embrace change in the pursuit of success.

Takeaways:

• The journey of leadership often begins with the necessity to adapt to new environments and challenges, as illustrated by my experience of relocating to a foreign country at a young age.
• Effective leadership necessitates a proactive approach in engaging and empowering employees, ensuring their continuous growth and development within the organization.
• The significance of maintaining a work-life balance cannot be overstated, as it fosters both personal well-being and professional success, allowing for sustained productivity.
• Our unique business model not only provides free services to clients but also prioritizes their success through comprehensive support and resources, reflecting a commitment to servant leadership.
• Navigating the complexities of the corporate world often involves recognizing and addressing the limitations within organizational structures, which can hinder employee engagement and satisfaction.
• The importance of fostering genuine connections within the business community is paramount, as it can lead to fruitful collaborations and enhance overall business success.

Links referenced in this episode:

• franchisewithmax.com
• linkedin.com/in/max-emma

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Costco
• Bookscaping
• HR Block
• Liberty Tax

Mentioned in this episode:

Thank you for listening

Thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this episode please give it a 5 star review.We would love to have you be a subscriber, don't miss an episode!

Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight - Welcome

Welcome to the podcast

Well, hello everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast where we where we hear from game changing leaders and their amazing insights on how to be a great leader and what you can do to maybe influence your people, your team, to excel. And I have a great guest today. His name is Max Emma, and he is actually from the Soviet Union. You actually came from here around what age?

18, if that's correct, and supported yourself through college.

You've been in the corporate world and now you've opened up your own franchise brokerage where you help individuals pursue the American dream by owning a franchise and you help them choose between over 600 franchises, which is really, really great. And it says that your services are completely free to any candidate. So you love what you do, you love working.

You've got a few other businesses that are wrapped in here. So, Max, welcome to the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast.

Thank you, Jaclyn. It's great to be here.

So tell me, Max, so you obviously had to do quite a bit to, to lead yourself to where you are. So what do you think took you to do that?

Well, it's a great question.

I think it's the fact that I did not have a choice, you know, when I came to this country at the age of 18, which was over 32 years ago, so I had to start brand new life and, you know, living my childhood, my friends behind. Luckily, I came with my parents and my brother already was living in the United States. So it wasn't just me by myself.

I did have a family support, but I didn't have any friends. So I had to start from, from scratch. So moving forward and not stopping wasn't, you know, an option.

That was the only choice that we made when we moved to this country.

Oh. So I'm curious, when you first got here, did you jump right into college or did you have to wait a bit before you got into college?

So I was taking English classes, which it wasn't helping me. And we came in January and I went to community college in September.

But I developed my own system to learn English because again, the ESL classes did not help me to excel. So I was like, okay, how do I think outside of the box? And I've always been since I was a little kid, like, how do I beat the system?

I mean, so my beating the system of learning English was actually calling different credit card companies. And at that time, all the support centers were in the United States.

And so for 40, 45 minutes, I was talking to a native speaker about why I cannot have a credit card in the United States. Duh. I mean, I didn't have a credit history. I knew that. But for 45 minutes we're going back and forth and finally we're done.

I was calling a different credit card company. I was doing that two, three hours a day, every day.

And so at no time, well, actually it was time I started speaking and understanding and that helped me a lot. So I went to college, I found a good job. I worked for Costco for five years while I was going through college.

And you know, they even paid, even gave me a scholarship to go to, to school. So it was, it was a great experience. I mean, I've worked with a lot of people and that was great. But it's all started with, with learning English.

That's learning English. Really key right there. Really, really key. So tell me. I'm so important to me. So tell me.

You know, you know, right now you have, you have a business, bookkeeping. You are in corporate.

And I want to go back to the corporate world for a minute because you, you, you spent four years in corporate finance and you said it wasn't really for you and you gave your two weeks notice and you had a family landscape business. But I want to go to that corporate job, you know, what did you not like about that job? Why wasn't it for you?

Well, so I'm always joking that I wasn't very good in kissing butts. I was always kissing the wrong ones because it didn't help me to move on in the corporate ladder.

But being serious, it just, they couldn't keep me busy enough. So I worked for a great company and I learned a lot.

And part of my functions, what I was doing, they had to have it in order to do like corporate reporting, one to maybe two weeks a month. And they just did not have anything for me for the other two weeks. Which, you know, they didn't mind me doing nothing. But it wasn't just for me.

I'm like, okay, keep me busy. And at some point I was asking for project, I was asking for projects and they didn't have them.

After I was done with whatever needed to be done, again, I had to be there for two weeks. But the finance and accounting department for the company was probably 300 people because this was a huge, huge company and I was just bored.

And that was the biggest challenge for me. I'm like, I'm young, I want to do something and I have to come to work. I can't just not go to work. For a week.

But there was nothing there for me to do.

So. Okay, so leaders, I want you to just listen to this for a minute.

What?

He's just saying if you've got an employee and they're asking for work, you need to lead them.

I mean, obviously things could have been a little different if you had had a leader there who recognized this in you and said, oh, we've got a good one with Max. Let's work with him to elevate him so that there's more work. Right?

Yes, but look, it was a big company and again, nothing wrong with the company, but they had an org chart and my responsibility was to do that. So they would have to think outside of the box. How would we keep him busy for two weeks?

They would not be able to give me to a marketing department for two weeks because again, 10,000 employees.

So it's like, well, we have to be there because we need your function for the months and close or for the quarter and close because we have to have the books. It's a publicly traded company, so we have our process that we have to follow.

So now, because my companies are way smaller than that, I tell all my direct reports when we hire a new person, I'm like, make sure this person is staying busy. Make sure that this person has opportunity to grow, learn new things.

I don't have a problem if they do accounting and then for 10 hours a week they do social media. I'm fine with that. I want people to be multi talented and multitasking. But again, it's easy for me to do. I'm the CEO and there are my businesses.

And again, we're not a publicly traded company. But for big companies that would not happen.

Right. So that's really interesting. So it could happen. It's just not how they operate. So talk about your companies now.

So you, you obviously experience this where you had that and so talk to me about the companies that you have and how many employees do you have and, and what's it like being a CEO?

So July 4th was my real freedom day. That's the day that I became free. Seriously. And I celebrated. You know, when there is a fireworks on July 4, it has double meaning for me. Me.

Okay, that's my, that's my, that's my freedom day. It's not only the U.S. freedom, it's my freedom day. But it's fun, it's challenging, it is lonely at the top.

But again, I will not change it for anything else. And the way I operate now, I've had many businesses before I got to where I am right now. And I'm grateful for all of them.

Some of them failed and I had to go through bankruptcy, both personal and business, only to get back on my feet, start again from scratch. And you know, was we were more successful second time around and we were able to sell the business.

But then we ended up doing bookkeeping and it came as a necessity because we were just missing the financial data. So we started the bookkeeping company called Bookscaping.

And then at some point by accident, we started working for franchise brands and we started working for one. Then more and more and more, I'm like, I started being around franchisors and I absolutely loved it. I love to be around these people.

I loved how friendly they are, how they're willing to help and spend time with you. I'm like, when I grow up, I want to be like them. And so they that gave me an idea to franchise books keeping as the concept.

So now we're selling our own bookkeeping franchises in the United States. We actually the only true bookkeeping franchise available in on the market in America.

There are obviously HR blocks and liberty taxes of the world that provide both taxes and bookkeeping. We just do the bookkeeping. That's why we get a lot of referrals from CPAs. So that was the second business. Still is.

And I don't know which one is the more important because that's all running together. But then after I've done that for a few years and I got teams in every business, there is no way I would be able to do it by myself.

So I have teams, I have reports. Who do you know? Most of the work my job is to do strategical thinking and have a vision for the company.

I figured that if somebody not a good match for bookkeeping franchise, we would lose them and we would not be able to provide the value. So I open franchise brokerage.

And now if somebody not a good match for bookkeeping, because let's be honest, accounting is not for everybody, then we can help to choose from over 600 different brands. And as you said, Jaclyn, our services are free, 100% free to candidate. We do get paid, but only in case they end up buying a franchise.

We get commissions from the franchisor. Okay, so then, so I do, I. I do get commission. So I'm not working for free, but our services are free to get it.

Yeah, you're like a travel agent. The travel, travel booking is actually free for the consumer. The travel agent gets a commission from the travel agent.

I mean from the airlines or the.

Absolutely. But my job is to actually in a lot of times buy in the industry for them.

Like for example, I'm working with somebody right now who has a successful career and so does his wife. But they're looking for a business to have, you know, extra money. So they don't want to spend a lot of time on the business.

They not sure what business that should be.

So by talking to them, by doing the research, we actually found a tanning salon which is great because you know, they will need to spend time in the business but maybe few days a week for a few hours so they don't have to be there all the time. It's not like a restaurant where you have to leave there, you know, 24 7. So they don't have this time and they don't want to do it.

But it's potentially great returns and not a huge investment because the square footage print is very, very small. So that's what we do. It's not just, you know, somebody comes in and say, I want to buy McDonald's. They don't need a broker.

They just call McDonald's and buy one. Even though there are no territories available in the US because the whole country is sold.

But if they're like, I want a restaurant, we can help them to choose. Okay, do you want a pizza place? Do you want, you know, healthy dining burger joint? I mean, what is it? Coffee? Do you want?

You know, mobile food truck business? So that, that's the job of a broker. But again, if and when they buy, we get commission. But I'm actually going one way further.

I share part of my commissions with the candidate. We pay nine months of their sales training. So they get a life sales trainer for nine months.

Because I want them to be successful, I want them to build a business and then come back and say I want to buy business. So out of my commission we are paying for that and also we give them a rebate from, from the commission that I get.

So because this is not a main business for me, I, I mean I'm not depending 100 on this profit, so I'm willing to share it with.

That's super great. That's really great.

It's actually a really great model because you're actually giving, you're really, you're, you're following that whole servant leadership role because you're, you're helping, you're giving to, you know, it's, you know, it's like the go get the. I just actually interviewed Bob Burke who's wrote the Go Giver series. And it's that whole mentality of being able to give. So I really love that.

So while you're doing this and you're looking at the franchises, are you evaluating the leadership of the franchises and would you say, you know, could somebody say to you, hey Max, I'm looking at blank, blank, blank franchise. Have you ever done anything and would you then say run like their leadership stinks or you know what I mean?

Well, I do look at the leadership and because we are preferred franchise preferred, sorry, bookkeeping provider for 100 plus brands. And I work a lot with franchises, being a franchisor. I know a lot of the leaders myself.

And just yesterday I came back from a large conference in Phoenix, Arizona and so a lot of CEOs were there.

So when we do the valuation and let's say somebody wants to buy, you know, plumbing franchise, I just tell them, hey, you have five choices that are available in your hometown. But I do know two CEOs personally, okay? And I know that one of them is going to be available to you if you need his help.

And obviously if somebody has 2,000 units, there is no way the CEO be available. They have like the tiers. That's why I tell people you have an advantage buying books, keeping franchise at this point while we have 15 franchisees.

Because you have my number on your speed dial when we get to a certain level. Not because I don't like you, I'm still going to talk to you, but I will not be able to talk to you. You know, same day when I have 100 franchisees.

So take advantage of talking to see people while the franchise is small, okay? But some people like, okay, I don't care. I'll talk to you know, corporate trainer. But I want a franchise that has, you know, 500 units. Okay?

So here is an option for you. So we ask all of that. I never bad mousing anything and so I'm not going to go and say this is a bad leader. This is the good leader.

Because you every coin has two sides, okay? Only because somebody said this is a bad leader. It doesn't mean that this is a bad person. Okay? For example, you know, my team still may I have part.

I have some people who've been with me for over 10 years and when me and my co founder who Was my wife at a time we were speaking Russian in my office because the way we speak, they thought we're killing each other, but we were just passionate about the business. They still laughing right now. They're like, oh, Max and Elena talking. Something is going on.

And we were just, you know, passionate about, you know, the way how we're gonna structure the business, how we're gonna grow, what other avenues we're gonna explore. So that's why if you just listen to them, oh, they are, you know, mean to each other, but that's not true.

So you always have to hear two sides of the story. That's why I would be very careful about, you know, passing the judgment.

That's really, that's good. So, you know, it's great that you're providing these, this service for people.

So what's, what is the biggest thing that's next for you in your business? And where. Do you know, where's the. Where you want to grow?

I want to grow by delegating majority of my functions. And I'm getting better and better. I was brought up as the micromanager. I had to be involved in every step of the way.

My team hated me, I hated myself. It limited my growth.

When I learned to give up a lot of functions and let other people doing it, that's when I was able to open the second business and the third business. And, you know, I might open more businesses because again, I'm not involved 24 7. And look, for me, work, life, balance has different meanings.

Life, work, balance, life come first. You know, I want to travel. I want to spend time with my kids. I want to go see a lot of Broadway shows.

I want to go and have a great cigar with scotch. So I want time to myself. I want to go to gym. So I, I have this thing at certain time, like everything is scheduled in my calendar.

If it says I'm going to a gym, I'm shutting down the computer. And no matter how much work I have done, I'm done for the day because I've been there, done that.

You know, it's 11 o' clock at night and I'm still at the computer. And I did not have lunch or dinner because there is so much stuff going on. I only can do it for so long. And after that you get tired.

So I'm like, okay, it's 4 o' clock or 5 o' clock, whatever. I decided that day I'm going to be working. Okay, done. I'm. I'm done. And I'm not opening the computer when I come back.

So I'm very, as I said, I'm very good at it. But I'm learning how to become better and better. And that's what I think makes person successful.

When you actually can limit yourself on the number of hours you work in. Because, you know, being a workaholic is wonderful when you are 23, 25, but at some point it just gets. Gets you.

Yeah. You know, so, listeners, I really want you to take that. And this is actually a really important insight as a leader.

You know, as a leader, being able to put things on your calendar and make time for yourself and be able to teach your team that too. Because being part of a workaholic society or being part of a workaholic culture never actually ends up serving anybody well.

And that you first and foremost have to take care of yourself. And as Max said, he puts everything on his calendar. And I would tell you, put everything on your calendar.

The things that matter the most show up on your calendar if. Yeah, so do that. That is a great insight. So, Max, I could talk to you all day. I'm curious how. What is the best way for people to connect with you?

So the best way is to actually connect with me through franchisewithmax.com you can go on this website and decide if you want to talk to me about buying a bookkeeping franchise, if you need bookkeeping for your business, or if you need help to have a business on the site, which is a franchise. At some point, you'll end up talking to me no matter which one you choose.

But I have different teams of people that would take you through all the questions, understand what you're looking for, so we can serve you better. So franchise with Max.com is absolutely the best way to get a hold of me or LinkedIn. LinkedIn is fine as well. It's Max Emma on LinkedIn.

Okay, well, absolutely perfect. So listeners, reach out to Max, go to his website, Franchise with Max, also connect with him on LinkedIn. It's truly remarkable what he's doing and.

And what a great service you are offering. So I really appreciate that. So this is Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast. I'm your host, Jaclyn Strominger

If you've gotten great tips from this, which I'm sure you have, click, subscribe. And remember, I said please reach out to Max and be unstoppable.