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👋 Skip the sexy startups — just like Dan Claps and Derek Santos, who discovered that water damage cleanup franchises outperform tech unicorns. These two former sales maniacs now help burned-out executives escape corporate prison by buying "boring" businesses that generate $750K+ annual profits.

Read time: 4 minutes | 875 words

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STORY 

🚀 Dan Claps & Derek Santos' Franchise Empire

From working every Saturday and Sunday as 21-year-old sales maniacs to building a machine that converts 1 in 200 cold calls into franchise buyers. This is Dan Claps and Derek Santos' relentless mission to flip the entrepreneurship odds in favor of burned-out executives.

After studying Jordan Belfort's Straight Line system and grinding through 50-million-dollar revenue at a photo shoot marketing company, these two discovered the ultimate arbitrage: matching corporate prisoners with proven business models that succeed 90% of the time.

🧠 THE CORPORATE ESCAPE BLUEPRINT: WHY FRANCHISING FLIPS THE ODDS

While 80% of small businesses fail within five years, franchises flip those statistics completely. The brutal math is simple: starting from scratch = 70% failure rate. Buying a proven franchise system = 90% success rate.

Dan and Derek's discovery? Most executives have the management skills to succeed but lack the proven playbook. Their Franchise Playbook company bridges that gap by narrowing 4,000+ franchise options down to the elite 30 that actually make money.

THE QUALIFICATION MATRIX:

• Minimum $100K liquid capital

• Executive-level management experience

• Desire for semi-absentee business model

• Goal to replace and exceed corporate salary

💰 THE $100K TO $750K TRANSFORMATION SYSTEM

While other franchise brokers push any available opportunity, Dan and Derek built their empire on a controversial truth: most franchises are garbage, but the right ones create millionaires.

THE PLAYBOOK METHOD:

✅ Front-End Filter: Screen 4,000 franchises down to 30 elite opportunities
✅ Executive Matching: Pair personality types with compatible business models
✅ SBA Financing: Structure deals using 401K rollovers and government loans
✅ Semi-Absentee Focus: Target businesses that don't require hands-on labor

THE PROFIT REALITY: Their average client invests $150K-$250K total and targets first-year profits of $100K+. Top performers? Over $750,000 in annual profit from home service franchises.

"We have businesses where you can get in for $150,000, service-based with no physical location, and people are making close to a million dollars in profit."

🎯 THE THREE PILLARS OF FRANCHISE SUCCESS

1️⃣ HOME SERVICES DOMINATION (The Unsexy Goldmine) Water remediation, mold cleanup, lawn care - businesses most people would never consider but generate massive returns. Why? Consistent demand, insurance-backed payments, and scalable operations.

THE MENTAL HEALTH BREAKTHROUGH: Their newest recommendation is a mental health franchise that's legally semi-absentee - owners can't provide therapy services, so they're forced to hire clinical directors and focus on business growth.

2️⃣ COLD CALLING MACHINE (The Lead Generation Engine)
While competitors rely on online ads, Dan and Derek built a predictive dialer system making thousands of daily calls. Their team of 5 cold callers targets executives using data from golf habits to travel patterns.

THE CONVERSION MATH: 200 leads → 40 appointments → 20 show-ups → 1 buyer. Most people think cold calling is dead, but they're "fishing where nobody else has their rods in the water."

3️⃣ PRIVATE EQUITY FOLLOWING (The Smart Money Strategy) Dan tracks which franchise concepts private equity firms are buying at the franchisor level. His logic: "These guys are way smarter than me, so I follow what they're investing in."

🔥 THE FRANCHISE PLAYBOOK PHENOMENON

After Dan sold his previous franchise business to private equity, he and Derek launched Franchise Playbook with a simple mission: become the household name for franchise buying while building toward becoming franchisors themselves.

THE ULTIMATE GOAL: Buy proven businesses, franchise them, and take them from single locations to nationwide systems using their executive-finding machine.

THE CLIENT PROMISE: Zero additional cost (franchisors pay their fees), complete vetting process, and access to opportunities that aren't heavily marketed to the general public.

🌍 THE ANTI-RAT RACE BLUEPRINT

Dan and Derek prove that the path from corporate executive to business owner doesn't require reinventing the wheel. Their formula for franchise success:

✅ Target proven systems - Let someone else perfect the model
✅ Focus on unsexy industries - Water damage beats sexy tech startups
✅ Plan the exit strategy - Build equity for eventual sale
✅ Scale with multiple territories - Most clients buy 2+ locations
✅ Follow private equity money - Smart money identifies winning concepts
✅ Use cold calling - Fish where competitors won't go

Ready to escape the corporate grind? Remember: "We're not going to push you because most people don't buy. Nine out of ten don't end up buying, and we just have to accept that one will and one won't."

MEME