Corey Gilgan

Generators, Electric, Solar. Former Army. Minnesota Native, now in PNW.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@guessworkinvest You are going to need a Generator. Don’t want that lost revenue :)

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@WilsonCompanies LFG

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.

Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.

I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."

"They just come with the table, man."

They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.

This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.

I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.

"Did we…?"

"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."

Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.

My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."

Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.

I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.

Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.

I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.

Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@AntonioGracias Congratulations!

[Casey Jacobson @401Casey]

As a reformed municipal bond guy two stories have fascinated me the last couple weeks and they are of course very related. Washington state implementing an income tax and the downgrade of New York City

[Mike Solana @micsolana]

we focus a lot on the idea that socialism has always failed because it is an inherently value destroying system, and that’s true. but maybe more important today is the kind of person who *still* thinks it can work is just truly very stupid. and stupid people tend to fail.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@GovBobFerguson Stop the spending

[Greg Van Horn @gvh41]

Eighteen months after buying into a roofing franchise, I was no longer a roofer.

Still writing a $4,800 check every month on an SBA loan for a business I no longer own. Which I'll be writing for the next 99 months.

This message is for anyone at the brink. If there's one thing I can promise, the decision to buy into a franchise will change your life. For better or worse.

If I could start over again, I'd want someone to tell me about the conversations I never had that could've changed everything, so here we go:

When I decided I wanted to own a business, I landed on franchising after a few months of research.

Once I did, that was it. The blinders were on.

The question stopped being "how should I get into home services?"

It became "which franchise should I buy?"

I did what I thought was thorough research. Around 6 months worth:

- 3+ franchise consultants.
- Franchise sales organizations like Franchise FastLane.
- Franchise development reps (glorified sales reps) at 2+ dozen brands.
- I bought a course.
- I went to Discovery Days.
- And I talked to A LOT of franchisees.

If I was looking at a painting franchise, I called painting franchisees. Power washing, same thing. Roofing was trickier- I was the first franchisee in my specific system, so there was nobody to call within my brand. But I called franchisees from other roofing systems. And I called franchisees within the parent company's other brands.

I talked to 50+ of people who had made the same decision I was about to make.

I thought I was being diligent. And I was, but only within a very narrow frame.

Here's what I missed: every single person I talked to had already bought into franchising.

They were invested. Financially and psychologically. They needed the model to work because they were already in it.

And so I wasn't getting perspective, I was getting confirmation.

Nobody I spoke to had looked at franchising, weighed it against the alternatives, and chosen a different path.

Or just went out and did the thing on their own without looking back.

I never heard from the other side.

If I could start over, I would have called an equal amount of independent home service business owners.

Not franchisees. Independents.

The guy running a roofing company he built from scratch.

The woman who started a painting business without paying royalties to a corporate office.

People doing the exact same work I wanted to do, but without a franchise agreement.

And here's what they would have told me:

1. They would have made me think about royalties differently.

When a franchisor says "7.5% royalty," it sounds manageable (hindsight is a bitch sometimes). But that 7.5% comes off your gross revenue- not your profit. In roofing, net profit margins typically run 20% at best after you pay for materials, labor, overhead, insurance, marketing etc. So that 7.5% royalty is 37.5% of your profit. If you perform like the best.

An independent owner would have asked me: "What exactly are you getting for that?"

2. They would have told me what the best operators are doing to perform like the best.

The top-performing independent roofing companies are hitting ~20% net margins. They're doing it through tight job costing, smart hiring, efficient crews, and systems they built themselves. They're not paying a franchisor to tell them how to answer the phone. They figured it out, or they joined a peer group and learned from people who had.

3. They would have pointed me toward resources I didn't know existed.

There's an entire ecosystem of contractor networking groups, coaching programs, and peer communities that exist specifically to help independent home service owners grow. Groups like Nexstar, CCN, and HSA. Even the more intensive coaching programs are a fraction of what you'd pay in franchise fees over a ten-year agreement.

And here's the difference- you're paying for education and community, not permission to operate under someone else's rules.

4. They would have told me the real challenges.

They would have told me about cash flow crunches during slow seasons, the nightmare of finding reliable labor, the reality of building a brand from zero. Most importantly, they would have told me those challenges exist whether you're in a franchise or not. The difference is, when you're independent, you have the flexibility to solve them your own way.

5. They would have given me confidence.

Maybe most importantly, talking to successful independents might have shown me that I didn't need to buy into a system to succeed. That the "support" I was paying for wasn't magic- it was stuff I could learn, build, or buy a la carte for a lot less money and a lot more freedom.

I'm not saying franchising is always the wrong choice. For the right people in the right systems, it works.

So if you're in the research phase right now, and you've landed on franchising, do yourself a favor.

Don't just call franchisees. Call the people who looked at franchising and said no thanks.

Call the independents doing the same work without the royalty check.

They don't have confirmation bias or anything to sell you, and that's exactly why you should listen.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@GovBobFerguson No one believes this state needs more money. WASTE and fraud.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@GovBobFerguson It’s insane that anyone would think it would stop here. They’re breaking the barriers to just take and take.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@STLChrisH 45% for estimates (Generators) 20% for Service (Generators). Total blended - high 20s, low 30s depending on month.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@PadraicMcC Congrats!!! Well deserved.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@BoilerPlateCPA Industries

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@MeteoMark Will we get another Bomb Cyclone in Seattle?

[Cons @CaptainCons]

someone asked me last weekend, "How does Army Football compete with NIL since they can't offer it?"

my response? "We don't have to honestly."

Let me explain

-average NIL deal is ~$40K with 50% of guys making less than $1K - West Point (the Army) pays you a stipend that is ~$60K per year
-breaking down bigger NIL deals (taxes, agent, family) and that one time payment dwindles fast
-path to NFL - considering only 1% of cfb players make it to the NFL and average career is under 3 years, that's not a safe bet for a living even at a P5. Plus, if you're good enough, you can go to the NFL from West Point (multiple Army Football players have Super Bowl rings now)
-value of West Point degree - average starting salary after 5 years of service is ~$125K. With a MBA ~$175K. With 20 years of service ~$300K.
-average career earnings of West Point grad is ~$5-$10 million. Many far exceed that
-money aside, you develop a skillset that is not offered anywhere else and makes you a valuable commodity
-not to mention we play a great brand of football all over the country that is competitive at the highest levels
-I almost forgot! The Cow Loan at Army which is now up to $35K

I keep company with multi-millionares, CEOs, business owners, military leaders, and titans of industry that you see on your TV every day. That isn't bragging, it's a statement of fact. I wouldn't have this circle without West Point.

The question becomes, "Do you want a nice check and a cushy life for a few years or do you want to set yourself up for the rest of your life?"

It is a slightly harder question at 18-22yo but I think the choice is clear.
Beat navy @ArmyWP_Football

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@VibeMarketer_ Automate

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@jspujji Sales

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@jebank Interested.

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@thesamparr 1776 by David McCullough

[Corey Gilgan @cmgilgan]

@Austen His baby blue custom Bentley almost hit me while I was running one day… seemed like a decent way to go. Private Apple Buses for the rest of us, wasn’t too bad.