Am I a Good Candidate?

G'nosh is a unique and fun business opportunity. People who achieve success with G'nosh often do not resemble a typical business owner. In fact, most businesses aren't interested in attracting the type of creative, entrepreneurial, progressive, generous people we'd like to find to own a G'nosh studio. These free-thinking personality types just cause too many problems in a typical command and control style business. At G'nosh, while we are there to provide you with a proven and successful business model, we love to see an idea, or a person, grow and thrive in an atmosphere of true right-brained freedom. To top it off, this a fun group to hang out with! In the application review process, we want to learn about you and your reasons for wanting to join the G'nosh team. The right reasons for wanting a G'nosh are things like wanting to be your own boss, being tired of travelling (and we aren’t talking about that cruise to the Caribbean), including your family in your fun, or just loving creativity and caring about the experience you create for your customer.

What is a G'Nosh Partner?

G'nosh is Different

First of all, you should understand how our business model is different. G’nosh is not a franchise. Our business is built on a Joint Venture Partner model. While there are similarities between the two, there are also several notable differences. G’nosh is a company of owners. Your investment is in your partnership WITH G’nosh not FOR G’nosh. It has been our experience that people want ownership and when they have it, they are much more successful and happy.

And speaking of investment in your business – the all important question to some – it’s $30,000. That’s it!

In this model you will actually receive a salary of $40,000 plus 20% of the net profits of the business. I don’t know of many franchises that pay you a salary... BIG difference!

“Wait a minute... did I get that right? I’m going to invest $30,000 and G’nosh is going to pay me a $40,000 salary plus 20% of all of the profits?”  Yep, and we don’t stop there...

Another formula, this one for ownership transfer, kicks in at the end of the five years, should the manager wish to leave. G’nosh takes the last two years' cash flow of the managing partner’s studio, averages it out, and multiplies that figure by five. The departing managing partner receives 10% of the total. (That’s some major mullah!) That provides a potent, long-term incentive to build each business. Of course, that's not the sole option. A manager can sign up for five more years or cash out of one store and move to another, investing a fresh $30,000. Bet that beats a 401K!

Guess what else? We sign the lease, we do the build out, we supply all of the furnishings… we do it all. I bet the franchises don’t do that!

We have BIG plans for G’nosh and we can’t run all of the stores ourselves so we need owners/partners and we believe in giving them a big chunk of the action!

Is my city available?

Experience

People often ask, "How can we expect to succeed when we don't know anything about art? I was trained to be an engineer!" This always strikes us as funny because the G'nosh system is so different from a regular business, as most people think of it. To teach somebody who had experience would be much more difficult than starting with a clean slate (but if you are one of those really, really, really smart people... we can teach you, too).

Over the years, we've learned ways to systematize (that’s one of those words that those really, really, really smart people know) every aspect of the business so it can be easily taught to new employees, or new owners. Our training program, which includes a comprehensive Operations Manual and personal partner training, along with ongoing partner webinars and online partner resources, will provide you with everything you need to hit the ground running with your new G'nosh studio. Ohhh and one more thing... no engineers allowed! (Just kidding)

Local Connections

The best locations are often chosen by local people. We contribute the knowledge of building a G'nosh studio to their knowledge of the town, which is a formula for success. Truly, local people have a feel for the town that no amount of careful study by outsiders can substitute. But just in case... we have some very good “outsiders” that study all of those silly little numbers.

Another big factor: Local people very often hang onto their jobs while location and equipment hunting and, as a result, don't feel the time pressure to be open by a certain deadline. They may actually save some money, instead of watching it gradually dwindle to living expenses while unemployed and trying to get settled in.

Patience is often a big factor in getting the right location. It's important to recognize the high cost of self-imposed deadlines during start-up, and to put yourself in a position where patience can come naturally. Having said that... to heck with patience! We are ready to ROCK! If you're not local to the area where you are applying, that's OK. We'll just want to understand in the application review process your plans to overcome this challenge.

Entrepreneurs

G'nosh is probably not a good fit for you if you are looking to "be in on the ground floor" of a hot concept (I never quite understood why it was good to be in on the ground floor when all the good stuff was on that top floor... I think they call it the penthouse. Well, I guess it’s better than the outhouse...), wanting to open a store that makes you smile each day when you unlock the door, wanting a return-on-investment that will amaze your friends (and make a few of them quite jealous), etc. Our job is to remove as much of the risk for you as we possibly can, to teach you everything we've learned the hard way, so you can do what you do best.

But it still takes an entrepreneur's spirit to start a G'nosh—yours will be a totally new business, in a totally new town, with different people running it, and you just can't know for sure how you're going to do. You can guess, but you can't know until you open your doors. Does that excite you?

Financial Expectations

This brings up something else that we might as well cover here. Your biggest question—and we can't blame you—is usually "how much money will I make?" Profits are important for every business. We've never seen a "strong and exciting studio" that wasn't profitable. Unfortunately, those guys in those big buildings with statues of horses and stuff in front of them won’t allow us to tell you. These are what the federal government calls “financial performance representations” and are strictly regulated. But my guess is that you already knew that. The good news is that we have a lot of information that we CAN provide you once we both decide we are more serious about opening your own studio. You know the saying “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink..” OK, maybe that is just for you folks in Texas, but I bet we can help you get there.

Determination

We're in this adventure for the long haul. Because of this, we take every call seriously, even if we're all signed up for the year or you don't have enough money yet. People's situations change. But we take an instant liking to anyone with the dream of working for themselves and ideals to get it done. People who hang onto those ideals always get there. Whether you end up with G'nosh or not, if we can get you fired up toward that dream, it's worth it to us. Any questions at all, just call.

Step 2: Start Up Information