“It all starts with a desire. How hard do you want to go?” is the question that Dennis McKinley says all people should ask themselves if they have the interest in hopping on the franchise board.

The Black Tech Green Money podcast is all about giving listeners the necessary keys to not only get to the money but achieve success while doing it. Host Will Lucas is joined this week by McKinley, who automatically has that hustler spirit having been born and raised in Detroit, MI.

An investor, restaurateur, and all around serial entrepreneur, McKinley not only secured the rights to The Original Hot Dog Factory housed in Atlanta, GA, back in 2015 but revamped and rebranded the business to set it on a new path to success.

He tells Lucas about how it all started at Subway, explains how he stumbled upon The Original Hot Dog Factory and gives us the blueprint on how to achieve that same success as a franchise operator.

For McKinley, he was blessed at a young age to have mentors and teachers who said, “‘You’re a smart kid, whatever you want to do in life, you can do it.'”

McKinley has always been one to keep his ear to the streets to figure out what’s next and that’s no different than when he entered a Subway restaurant located near a laundromat he used to own, with a curiousity on how to become a franchisee.

“I was 20 or so when I had a few laundromats and wanted to know about how I could own a subway and make a profit,” shared McKinley. “About two or three weeks later, I purchased a Subway.”

Once he realized that while he made good money running the Subway, the franchise itself received most of the profit.

“You can make good money as a franchisee,” continued McKinley, “But the real money is in being a franchisor.”

Fast-forward 15 years and McKinley is now in Atlanta, hoping to find a good Coney dog like the ones he’s accustomed to in his hometown of Detroit.

“I walked into a placed called The Original Hot Dog Factory and clowned with the owner about either fixing up the place or allowing me to purchase it,” said McKinley.

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After securing the deal, McKinley quickly got to work. Everything went so well that people began inquiring about him having locations in various places around Atlanta.

“It took me two or three years to fix the place up and begin to franchise it,” he said. “Now, we have 15 open with 30 more in the works.”

Of course, host Will Lucas couldn’t let McKinley leave without sharing his wealth of knowledge on how to successfully franchise a business. Find out what McKinley says are the keys to this and why 100 percent of The Original Hot Dog Factory franchisees are Black or brown.

Listen to this week’s full episode with Dennis Mckinley here:

Dennis McKinley

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