# Everything I Learned at JPMorgan (Voice-Note Script) **Format:** Long-form, direct to camera. Dan reads / records each block as a voice note, then it gets cut. Roughly 150 words per minute, one thought per line, contractions throughout. **Funnel:** Personal-brand video --> Guerrilla Franchising free guidance. One CTA at the close. **Structure per lesson:** the rule in one line, what it's for, how I run it on a franchise today with real numbers, then the spoken take. Built from Dan's actual JPMorgan "How We Do Business" principles (focus on the customer; act and think like owners and partners; build teamwork, loyalty and morale; foster respect, humanity and humility), his valuation training, 18 years in Special Forces, and the $321K origin story. No named client, no specific JPMorgan or Deloitte transaction needed. The lesson is the asset. --- ## TITLES (run both, same video) A/B on the institution. JPMorgan is the specific, verifiable name. Wall Street is the broader, familiar one. 1. Everything They Teach You at JPMorgan / Everything They Teach You on Wall Street 2. Everything I Learned at JPMorgan in 12 Minutes / Everything I Learned on Wall Street in 12 Minutes 3. A Former JPMorgan Analyst Explains How to Actually Size Up a Business *(Swap the minute count once the final cut length is locked.)* --- ## COLD OPEN (0:00 - 0:20) Say the credential first. Then flip it. > I spent years in Special Forces, then I went to JPMorgan as a valuation analyst, then Deloitte as a consultant. Finance-trained. I'd already bought a franchise, scaled it, and sold it. > > And I still signed a deal with $321,000 in costs that were never in the paperwork. > > Not buried. Not fine print. Never disclosed at all. > > Here's the difference between me and the 200-plus other investors who missed the same thing: I know exactly which JPMorgan rules would have caught it. I run every one of them on every franchise I look at now. > > These are the ones that matter. --- ## THE 10 LESSONS ### 1. A number is a claim until you rebuild it **The rule:** At the bank you never trust a number in a deck. You rebuild the model from the raw inputs before you believe it. **What it's for:** Somebody built that number to make a case. Your job is to find out what's holding it up. **How I run it on a franchise:** The Item 19 "average revenue" I got shown included locations nothing like mine. Different market, different size, different maturity. Strip it down to units that actually look like the one you'd open, and the number moves. Sometimes it falls apart. > Every franchise hands you an average. Average location, average owner, average market. That buyer doesn't exist. Rebuild the number using only the units that look like yours, or don't use it at all. --- ### 2. Follow the cash, not the story **The rule:** Cash flow is the truth. Earnings can be dressed up. Revenue can be a headline. **What it's for:** A business dies from running out of cash, not from a bad slide. **How I run it on a franchise:** Royalties come off the top. 8% royalty plus a 2% brand fund on an $80,000 month is $8,000 wired out before you pay a single employee, before rent, before you take a dollar home. Model the cash that actually hits your account every month, not the "revenue potential" on the projection. > Revenue is what shows up in the pitch. Cash is what's left after the franchisor, the landlord, and payroll take their cut. Model the cash. --- ### 3. Every document has a side, and the FDD is sell-side **The rule:** At the bank there's sell-side and there's buy-side. Sell-side is written to sell. Buy-side is written to protect the buyer. **What it's for:** Once you know which side wrote the document, you know how to read it. **How I run it on a franchise:** The FDD and Discovery Day are the franchisor's pitch, written by the franchisor's lawyers. Read them the way a buy-side analyst reads a sell-side deck: not "what's here," but "what did they leave out, and why." > Nobody at Discovery Day works for you. Read the FDD asking one question the whole time. What's missing from this, and who benefits from me not noticing? --- ### 4. Diligence is the job, not a step **The rule:** Diligence isn't a box you check before closing. It is the work. You talk to real people, and you pay for the expert hour. **What it's for:** The model tells you what could happen. The people tell you what actually happens. **How I run it on a franchise:** Call the current franchisees the brand sends you. Then find the ones who left and call them. The owner who closed a location will tell you in ten minutes what the FDD won't tell you in 300 pages. > The franchisor gives you a list of happy owners to call. Call them. Then go find the ones who aren't on the list. Those are the phone calls that save you $300,000. --- ### 5. Bet on the jockey, not just the horse **The rule:** You underwrite the management team as hard as you underwrite the business. Wrong people wreck a good concept. **What it's for:** You're not just buying a brand. You're buying who runs it and whether they'll still be standing in five years. **How I run it on a franchise:** In a franchise, the franchisor's leadership and the support system are your management team. Who owns the brand now? Did private equity just buy it? Is the founder gone? A good concept with the wrong people at the top will drain a strong operator. > You can be the best operator in your market and still lose, because the people running the brand above you can sink you. Underwrite them like you're hiring them. You are. --- ### 6. Size the loss before you size the win **The rule:** Before you model the return, model the downside. What do I lose if this goes wrong, and can I survive it? **What it's for:** Return math is easy to fall in love with. The downside is what actually ends people. **How I run it on a franchise:** My $321,000 wasn't a return question, it was a survival question. Pay $321,000 I didn't have, or lose $526,000 and default on the SBA loan. I model the exit the day I model the entry. What's the term, what's it cost to get out, and what happens to the loan if I have to walk. > Everybody runs the upside. Almost nobody runs the day it goes wrong. Model the exit before you sign the entry, because the exit is where the loan and the personal guarantee live. --- ### 7. Focus on a customer who already exists **The rule:** Focus on the customer. Real demand, already there, already spending. Not a market you have to create. **What it's for:** Teaching a market to want something is the most expensive thing in business. Skip it. **How I run it on a franchise:** Pick a business where people are already buying, in a spot where they already are. The demographics slide, the tailwind, the 12,000 people turning 65 a day, all of it can be real and none of it answers the phone. The territory map is the prettiest lie in the FDD. > A great territory on a map means nothing if the customer in it isn't already spending money on what you sell. Demand you have to create is demand you're paying for twice. --- ### 8. Reputation sits on the balance sheet **The rule:** Integrity is an asset, and reputational risk is real risk. Decades to build it, seconds to lose it. The newspaper test. **What it's for:** How an organization behaves when nobody's forcing it tells you everything about what it'll do to you. **How I run it on a franchise:** Read Item 3, the litigation. Then look at how the franchisor treats the franchisees who fail. The brands that sue their own struggling owners will do the same to you the day your numbers dip. That's not a footnote. That's the whole character of the deal. > Watch how they treat the owners who are drowning. That's how they'll treat you on your worst month. A brand that lawyers up against its own franchisees is telling you exactly who they are. --- ### 9. Act like an owner and a partner, not an employee buying a job **The rule:** Think and act like an owner and a partner. Ownership is a machine you build, not a seat you fill. **What it's for:** If you have to be there for it to run, you didn't buy a business. You bought yourself a boss. **How I run it on a franchise:** Decide up front, is this semi-executive or am I the operator? Semi-executive, not semi-absentee, because nothing runs without you at the start. Structure it so it can run without you eventually, with a manager, systems, and margin thick enough to pay them. Build the machine. > There's a version of every franchise where you own it, and a version where it owns you. The difference is whether you built it to run without you. Decide that before you sign, not after. --- ### 10. Discipline over passion. Process over feeling **The rule:** The discipline I learned in the Army and sharpened at the bank. You follow the process even when the story is exciting, especially then. Be selective, not desperate. **What it's for:** Excitement is where the expensive mistakes live. The process is the only thing that doesn't get emotional. **How I run it on a franchise:** There's no such thing as the best franchise. Only the best franchise for you, your capital, your skills, your market, the life you actually want. The test is simple. Would I buy this with my own money, knowing what I now know? If the process says no, I walk. I pass on far more than I ever place. > Passion doesn't pay bills. Process does. The franchise you fall in love with at the trade show is almost never the one the numbers pick. Run the process. Let it tell you no. --- ## THE CLOSE (single rule I won't break) > If I had to keep one rule from that whole era, it's this. > > Never sign your name to a number you didn't tear apart yourself. > > I was finance-trained. I'd already scaled and sold a franchise. And $321,000 still got past me, because I trusted a number I didn't rebuild. One number. > > So now I rebuild every one. That's not the extra work. That is the work. --- ## CTA (one, into GF free guidance) Ground it in the JPMorgan principle that fits: respect, humanity, humility. That's why the guidance is free and why I'll tell you no. > Here's the part that's different from a banker. I don't get paid by you. > > I help people figure out whether franchising even fits their situation, teach them how to read the deal, and point them at the brands that actually match what they need. It's free to you. The franchisors pay me, and only when it's a fit. > > If you're looking at a franchise right now and you want a second set of eyes that's run these rules on a few hundred deals, the link's below. No pitch. If it's not a fit, I'll be the one who tells you. --- ## PRODUCTION NOTES - Numbers used: $321,000 omitted from the FDD and $526,000 exposure are canonical (about-me.md / facts.md). The 8% + 2% on $80,000 is illustrative deal math, same example as brand-voice.md. Confirm the exact placement/candidate count from facts.md before adding any "hundreds of deals" figure on camera; I kept it qualified on purpose. - Never use "buried" or "hidden" for the $321K. It was omitted. Never disclosed. - Terminology held: candidate not client, Franchise Consultant not broker, semi-executive not semi-absentee, "$321K omitted from the FDD." - Hard rules held: no em dashes, no emojis, no banned phrases, contractions throughout. ## FLYWHEEL (after this ships) - Each lesson is its own Short. That's 10 on-camera Shorts from one long-form (Format 3 in the youtube-engine), all routing to the same CTA. - Lesson 1 (rebuild the number) and Lesson 3 (the FDD is sell-side) are Zorzee-native. Repurpose as a LinkedIn or X post under the Zorzee editorial voice, no CTA. - Lesson 2 (follow the cash) and Lesson 6 (size the loss) are Books Brothers angles. The cash-out-the-door math is a BB hook. - Swipe-file candidate: the cold open (credential, then the reversal). It's a reusable pattern-interrupt for any personal-brand piece.