Innovative Work Models for the Future with Carnie Fryfogle

**SPEAKER_2** (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** (0:18)
Well, welcome back to the show where we explore how empathy, connection, and purpose transform business from the inside out. I'm Stephen, joined again by Mike.
Today's conversation explores innovative work models. Here's a surprising statistic. According to the Franchise Business Review, 70 percent of franchise businesses failed within the first five years. Our guest today is a leader who has helped countless businesses defy those odds. Reimagining growth and operations through smarter, more sustainable franchise models. Mike, please introduce our guest today.

**Mike Liwski** (0:52)
Stephen, I'm delighted to and looking forward to our discussion. This morning, we're excited to welcome Carnie Fryfogle. He's actually the co-founder and the current CEO of CR3 American Exteriors. With decades of experience in franchise management, Carnie's had the opportunity to help brand scale through a mix of strategic planning, operational excellence, and also that people-centric leadership that we love to talk about here on the show. We know our audience is very interested in learning more about that. Carnie has a passion for empowering franchisees and transforming their businesses into those high-performing operations that they seek. He's known for bringing fresh people first thinking to an industry that is often dominated by very rigid playbooks, we could say. So Carnie, we are thrilled to have you on the show with us today. Welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast.

**Carnie Fryfogle** (1:54)
Yeah, I appreciate you guys having me on this afternoon. I believe it's still morning for you guys.

**Mike Liwski** (2:01)
Yep, it's good there. So maybe Carnie, we could start off just to learn a little bit more about your journey. And in particular for our audience, how that empathy and the importance of connection, and play a role into your leadership and your style.

**Carnie Fryfogle** (2:19)
Yeah, absolutely. So I founded the company back in 2017 Prior to that, I'd been in construction literally my entire life. As a young kid, Hammernail 2x4s was actually a photo of me. That's on social media, it buzzes around from time to time. I look like I can hardly walk. I'm like two, three years old. I got a Hammernail 2x4s and I'm putting something together. So it was just ingrained in me from a young age. I worked with my grandfather, my father, just kind of grew up in it. I always joke with everybody and tell them I didn't choose this life, it closed me. So naturally, when it was time to try and create a means of income to either pay for a vehicle while I'm coming up through middle school, high school, whatever, construction is just kind of naturally what I fell into, the family business. And when it came time to either go to college and spend 40 grand a year or try and strap a tool belt on and make 40 grand a year, I elected to throw the tool belt on and kind of just had a moment in time when I was about 20, 21 years old, where I realized that I get one life, I have one opportunity to do something special. And at the time, I was working and living for the weekend, right, like just making a little bit of money to pay my bills. And it was enough for me to have fun. And I loved the weekends and I hated Monday. And I just kind of had a moment where I looked at it for what it was and realized that I don't want to do this for the next 40 years of my life. Why am I looking at this in such a negative light? Just kind of recognize that once again, I get one opportunity, one life. And that mental shift that took place made me open my eyes and realize that it that work was not just a means to pay bills and live for the weekend, but it was a means for me to chase some type of lifestyle that I wanted in the future. So that that mental shift was huge for me. And it led me to start looking and exploring other avenues. So in in the fall of 2017, I decided to part ways from my father and focus on building an exterior company by myself. At the time, I'm 21, 22 years old, had $2,500 in my checking account and didn't know how I was going to do it. Never built a business before, but figured I'd bootstrap it and figure it out from there.
Over the course of about four years, we went from nothing and a kid with $2,500 in his checking account to doing just under $15 million in annual.