Building Community and Connection in Business with Charles Furlough

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
Well, welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Stephen Sakach here again with my co-host Tullio Siragusa, and we've got a special guest today. But first, Edelman's Trust Barometer consistently shows that trust is one of the top factors influencing customer loyalty and brand preference. And so for service-based businesses especially, building connection is not optional, it's foundational. So today we explore what it takes to build community and connection at scale, particularly inside a franchise model where autonomy, consistency, and brand trust must all coexist. Tullio, introduce our special guest today.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:56)
Absolutely. Our guest today is Charles Furlough. He's the president and CEO of Pillar To Post Home Inspectors, North America's largest home inspection franchise. With deep experience as both a franchise owner and an executive, Charles has guided the brand through market shifts while championing scalable business models that empower entrepreneurs. He leads with a focus on innovation, franchise business owner success, and long-term growth. Charles is passionate about building systems that support autonomy, profitability, and meaningful client relationships. He brings valuable insight into leadership, evolving workforce trends, and how service-based businesses can thrive in today's economy. Charles, welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast. We're excited to feature you today.

**Charles Furlough** (1:47)
Happy to be here.

**Stephen Sakach** (1:49)
Charles, as Tullio mentioned, you lead North America's largest home inspection franchise. In a distributed model like that, what does community truly mean for you?

**Charles Furlough** (2:03)
Well, I think in a successful franchise, one that can be around for a long time, ultimately, it's got to be a family. It's got to be a family of businesses. That is certainly true with us, and I think that applies to our staff at the franchise or level, and our interactions with our franchise business owners. We refer to franchisees, what you would hear normally as franchisees. There are franchise business owners.
It's the key inside the family of the franchise, but that community is so important for our franchise business owners. They're out there in the individual communities that they live in. And it's, this is a business based on trust, and it's a business based on relationships. And so just continuing to drive that idea, that concept, that feeling, that you are a part of your local community, and you're a part of the Pillar To Post community. I think it's just key to long term success.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:28)
For sure. I think, you know, when you think about companies that are families, it's easy when you're kind of close together, but, you know, when you've got all these, you know, franchisors out there, how do you build that family, you know, at a distance?

**Charles Furlough** (3:42)
Well, it's not easy to stay in close enough contact. But I think we do it in a lot of different ways. I will say, one thing, like the platform that we're on right now, has just helped an awful lot. In years past, you could go long periods of time, even though you might talk to someone regularly, you don't get to see them regularly. Today, we can do both. I think that has helped an enormous amount.
We also do things like we have regional meetings. So we have 22 regional meetings all over the US and Canada. We do those twice a year. So while it's not all of us coming together at the same time, it is an opportunity to get together for franchise business owners to get together and for us to get together with them. We also have an annual conference. We have great attendance at that. Not only do a lot of good business things, but have a lot of fun at the same time. And then just constantly trying to communicate and have as much of that be two-way communication as we possibly can.

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:55)
I'm curious about how your experience as both a franchise owner in the past has shaped how you help franchise be successful as an executive. I spent 30 years in IT and tech, and some of the best hires as a vendor that we ever made were actual, initially clients. They were the people on the other side, right? So they came on as a very strong practitioners. So I'm just curious how that's informed the way you help franchise be more successful, having been sort of in their shoes and walked a mile in their shoes as well.

**Charles Furlough** (5:29)
Well, if I listen to some of our franchise business owners that I've known for many, many years, from back when I was a franchise owner to today, I think it's a good thing. It's viewed as a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's a good thing because I have been there and done that. And I do see a lot of things through their eyes. How is this going to affect their daily life? How is this going to affect the way they're able to run their business? And I think that's the good side of it. The bad side of it is I'm kind of hard to fool. I've been there and I've done that. So I do know what that's like. And I think it's a benefit. I will tell you in the early days, and this is so.