Dressed in his Quickmount TV polo shirt and work pants, Seth Yost visited a house on Camp Pendleton, with a mission to expertly install a TV.
When he got there, the homeowner, a Marine met him and showed him the space where he wanted the flat-screen to hang. Then, seconds later, the Marine recognized Yost as his former battalion commander from when he deployed to Afghanistan with a unit based at Twentynine Palms.
The two talked about their service. When Yost left, he said the Marine was “super grateful” for his work.
Yost, of San Clemente, who retired as a colonel from the Marines in 2023, is part of a growing number of veterans building their American dream by becoming entrepreneurs as franchise owners. What helps, according to experts, is that the skills they build during service translate into a better chance of success in operating a franchise.
The U.S. Census Bureau surveyed 4.3 million businesses in 2020. Of these, 10.5% are franchised or franchisor-owned. Veterans own 14% of franchises, contributing $41 billion to the GDP. Yet, they are only 7% of the population.
While Yost recognizes that he might be overqualified for the work, he said the skills he learned as a Marine are helping make the business venture a good fit.
“A U.S. Marine’s ability to lead, follow systems and processes, remain disciplined and solve problems under pressure make them well-suited for the responsibilities of being a franchise owner in any industry,” he said.
And there’s also the satisfaction of serving others. The satisfaction he gets from customers gives him immense pride, he said, similar to the pride of service he got from being a Marine, which he said was an organization that was “hard to leave.”
“The Marine Corps keeps giving you satisfying work with great people and a meaningful mission,” he said, adding that owning and building out a successful franchise is “very reminiscent of being a Marine.”
“Everyone is trying to make ourselves, each other, and the entire organization better,” he said.
After nearly 30 years, including three combat deployments, working with the Dutch military, and training new Marines to be riflemen, Yost sought something to sink his teeth into that would provide a similar reward, he said. After looking at options, he settled on Quickmount TV, partly because he didn’t have to dip into his savings because of costs the company waives for veterans.
“It sounds weird, but when you hang a TV in someone’s house five times a day, you just left five people super happy and you have a sense of accomplishment on a daily basis,” he said. “And I think that the effect of making people happy is not a bad thing. You leave a house nicer than you found it.”
Yost’s territory covers southern Orange County and San Diego County, and while he works mostly on his own, he plans to hire more installers and divide the terrain into regions.
“I feel like our nation is designed to support and lift up individual entrepreneurs, folks willing to take the risk and pull themselves up and build a business,” Yost said. “I defended our country for 29-plus years and I sought an opportunity to build something of my own outside the Corps.”
Chris Hale, a Navy veteran and CEO of Vetrepreneur.com, said veterans typically leave the military highly disciplined, focused on mission success, attentive to small details, good at thinking around obstacles, team builders and motivated, making them ideally suited for successfully running a franchise. Since 2001, he has been focused on helping veterans find civilian opportunities through employment, education, and entrepreneurship.
“I’ve had countless veterans come up to me and say, ‘I’m super interested in entrepreneurship, but I just don’t have any specific industry experience, nor have I ever owned a business before. I don’t have a great idea for a new product or invention, and I just don’t know what to do,’” Hale said. “The answer for that is very simple: it’s called franchising. It’s one of the best ways to get into business for yourself, but not by yourself.”
Even without business know-how, veterans just starting out have a support network to boost their opportunities for success. Franchise teams often help set up services like marketing, vendor relations and pricing, Hale said. It’s like business in a box with many other franchisees who can, and do, offer support – and they are often fellow vets.
Veterans mostly have a good set of benefits through the Veterans Administration from their service that can help make them feel more free in taking chances and have often saved up some money during their service, Hale added.
Many franchisors also offer discounts to veterans. Quickmount TV recently kicked off a campaign offering 100 veterans a franchise where the $49,500 startup cost is completely waived.
“I love working with military veterans,” said Michael Mehditash, the Newport Beach company’s founder and CEO, adding that besides Yost, he has four other former colonels working for him. “Who better to represent me? They are mission-oriented and very polite.”
There are more than 2,000 franchise business categories nationwide, with McDonald’s being the world’s largest, generating more than $25 billion in revenue. A typical franchise agreement lasts 10-20 years, which franchise experts say is long enough to establish the business, grow it and develop customer loyalty. About 80% of franchises are local or regional brands, while only 16% are global or national franchises.
Hale said the key is to figure out what franchise option is a good fit and to make sure it’s legit.
“When you Google and go to the ‘franchise buffet,’ you get hit with a lot of different information from a lot of different sources and you don’t know what is trustworthy and what is not,” he warned. “You end up getting to a place where there is no way I can make this decision because I just don’t have sufficient levels of trust in this information to be able to make the decision.”
He came up with a free service in which he offers coaches – who are often military veterans – who help potential franchise owners navigate the process. The 10-week, 10-step program helps veterans decide whether owning a franchise is for them and, if it is, what the right franchise is.
“It’s been very successful; it’s very structured, and you get the right information at the right time,” he said. “You’re able to bounce it off many other people.”
Among those he’s helped is Slade Abisror, a Navy veteran who worked on the electrical systems on the flight decks of aircraft carriers from 1992 to 1996. Following his service, he spent 20 years in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, winning an Emmy for “The Ellen Degeneres Show.”
“I wanted to do something more where I can use my skills,” he said. “I just wasn’t satisfied.”
Abisror said as a teenager he had worked in memory care – a girl he liked did it, but he said he ended up falling in love with the work and the people he met.
So, when Hale told him about a franchise opportunity in senior care, he jumped at the chance.
“I had a need where I’d be getting out of bed every day and feel good about something I was doing,” he said. “The same way I did when I was working in the nursing home, the same way I did when I was in the military, where every day we’re doing something to either protect somebody or for the betterment of our country, I wanted to feel like I was giving back.”
He did research and was put in touch with the CEO of Senior Helpers, with whom he said he shared the same vision.
“There was a need for better care in the home care community,” he said. “You needed caregivers to be more educated and to be paired well with the clients. He rattled off all these reasons why he started Senior Helpers. Everything he said just resonated with me so well.”
So he opened Senior Helpers South Valley in Encino. Now, open almost a year, Abisror said he has found greater meaning in his life.
“It all goes back to getting up and being that nurturer I always was,” he said.
Coming full circle and giving back was also important for John Schaar, who served in the Marines during the Vietnam War era.
Just days away from opening his Postal Annex franchise in Temecula, Schaar, 74, was looking to hire some help when a young Marine who recently left the service after serving in aviation electronics at the Miramar air station came through his doors, he said.
The Marine, who Schaar described as very intelligent with an “impressive resume of what he did in the Marines” told him that for the last two years, he’d only been able to get jobs in food service.
“He said companies in California actually told him, ‘I don’t know if we want a Marine on staff, if they heard someone was a Marine, my staff would up and quit,’” Schaar said. “He was treated like crap by potential employers in California, the same way I was treated.”
When Schaar left the Marines, he said he used his skills – discipline and leadership – to do well in construction, where he parleyed that into a management role as vice president of the company. He said that success helped set him up financially to make the franchise investment and write the startup check, for which he also got a discount as a veteran.
But, the recent experience with the young Marine veteran saddened him.
“It dawned on me, 54 years later and it’s the same stuff,” he said of feeling there is not enough attention on resources for veterans transitioning out of service into real life.
He hired the Marine on the spot.
“I like the way he carried himself,” Schaar said. “I saw what he’d done, his discipline and how respectful he was. He was just an impressive young man.”
Schaar hopes the young Marine veteran will be able to learn a thing or two about running a business for himself.
“The best way to help veterans is for the federal government to give more assistance to starting a franchise,” he said. “Veterans are our greatest asset.”
