What does it take to turn a humble beginning into a thriving empire? In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, host Marcia Dawood explores the intricacies of entrepreneurship and franchising with Dawn Lafreeda, a highly successful Denny’s franchisee. Dawn's entrepreneurial journey from a young hostess to owning more Denny’s franchises than anyone else globally underscores the power of determination, resilience, and strategic thinking. Dawn Lafreeda began her career at Denny’s at the age of 16 as a hostess and worked her way up to waitress before seizing her first business opportunity. Over the course of a 40-year career, she has owned, among other ventures, up to 120 Denny’s restaurants. In addition to her franchising achievements, Dawn participated as an executive producer in the movie "Show Her the Money," which highlights the challenges and empowerment of women in venture capital. This episode explores the benefits and challenges of franchising, where Dawn offers invaluable insights into site selection, financing, and scaling a business. Dawn also shares personal anecdotes about navigating business through crises like 9/11 and the pandemic, emphasizing the importance of proactive communication and financial prudence. Coupled with her advocacy for women in business and her efforts to mentor aspiring entrepreneurs, this episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of successful entrepreneurship and the feasibility of franchising as a robust business model. Tune in to learn from one of the best in the industry and be inspired by her story of success and determination.
What does it take to turn a humble beginning into a thriving empire? In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, host Marcia Dawood explores the intricacies of entrepreneurship and franchising with Dawn Lafreeda, a highly successful Denny’s franchisee. Dawn's entrepreneurial journey from a young hostess to owning more Denny’s franchises than anyone else globally underscores the power of determination, resilience, and strategic thinking.
Dawn Lafreeda began her career at Denny’s at the age of 16 as a hostess and worked her way up to waitress before seizing her first business opportunity. Over the course of a 40-year career, she has owned, among other ventures, up to 120 Denny’s restaurants. In addition to her franchising achievements, Dawn participated as an executive producer in the movie "Show Her the Money," which highlights the challenges and empowerment of women in venture capital.
This episode explores the benefits and challenges of franchising, where Dawn offers invaluable insights into site selection, financing, and scaling a business. Dawn also shares personal anecdotes about navigating business through crises like 9/11 and the pandemic, emphasizing the importance of proactive communication and financial prudence. Coupled with her advocacy for women in business and her efforts to mentor aspiring entrepreneurs, this episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of successful entrepreneurship and the feasibility of franchising as a robust business model. Tune in to learn from one of the best in the industry and be inspired by her story of success and determination.
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Marcia Dawood
Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Angel Next Door podcast. I am here today with Dolly Dawn LaFrieda. Dawn, welcome to the show.
Dawn Lafreeda
Thank you for having me.
Marcia Dawood
Exciting. I am so excited to talk to you. You are my hero. You have done so many amazing things to help support women. Your journey is just incredible, going from hostess to now the woman who owns more Denny's franchise restaurants than anyone in the world. So I'm just thrilled to talk to you not only about your journey with Denny's, but also we are together in the show her the Money movie. And you are an executive producer and I. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your story and then we'll talk a little bit about money too.
Marcia Dawood
Because, you know, who doesn't love a little money conversation if you watch the movie?
Dawn Lafreeda
You know, I love money.
Marcia Dawood
Yes, I love that part of the movie. So let's start out. Tell us a little bit about your background.
Dawn Lafreeda
So, you know, I grew up from very humble beginnings, and I think that drove me to want to be successful came from very little. So I decided that, you know, if I was ever going to be anything or make anything of myself, it was going to have to be out of my own grit and determination. So, unfortunately, I got a job at Denny's when I was 16 years old as a hostess. And I quickly saw that it was the waitresses, that's what they were called at the time, not servers. The waitresses were making all the money. And so I begged my manager, please let me be a waitress. And he's like, no, you're the best hostess I've ever had. We can't lose you on the weekends.
Dawn Lafreeda
No, you can't be a Waitress. I said to my. I said to my manager, I'll make a deal with you. If you let me wait tables on any shift you can give me, I will continue to host this for you on the weekends. So that was my entry into waitressing and making tips. And I soon became the best waitress. And no longer did he want me to host this, because I could work a whole dining room by myself. I have freakishly long arms.
Dawn Lafreeda
Anyway, so I saved all my tips. I saw it as a sales job, an opportunity to. The better service I gave, the more money I would make. And as a broken, you know, teenager who grew up with very little, it was exciting to me to be earning my own money. And an opportunity came where Denny's bought out a chain of restaurants called Hobo Joe's and Colony Kitchens. And they had one lonely restaurant in a tiny little mining town that they didn't want to convert to a Denny's. And that became my opportunity. A friend and mine of mine and myself, we bought it off credit cards and tips and a couple of small loans from family.
Dawn Lafreeda
And then in the 80s, oil went bust in West Texas. And Denny said, you know, we got four stores that could use some TLC and we would like to see if you two would like to buy them, and packed up the car and moved to West Texas.
Marcia Dawood
Wow. So you were a little bit of the turnaround person here. You. You were taking the franchises that people didn't want.
Dawn Lafreeda
Well, so what happens is Denny's wasn't big on franchising back then. They had more corporate stores. But I think they realized that after the oil went bust, these stores needed attention in the market. They couldn't be operated as efficiently remotely. So it became my opportunity. And the interesting thing about it is, when you're 23 years old and you don't have a lot of money, you're not going to get offered great stuff. You're going to have to do a turnaround situation where you're either going to make it or break it. Right.
Dawn Lafreeda
And so we just choose to work our butts off and make them successful and be in the restaurants. And I worked 17 hours a day, and, you know, it ended up paying off.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah. So when was the first time, then that you got a loan to.
Dawn Lafreeda
Oh, so interestingly so, to buy the restaurants, we took money off every credit card we could get our hands on. So go into the bank. And this was before that was ever done. This was in the early 80s. So the first loan I ever got is interesting. I moved to Texas in 1986 and the savings and loan crash had happened and I hadn't lived in Texas two years and so nobody would loan me any money. I needed to buy a fax machine, if you can believe that's how long ago it was. And fax machines were $3,000 and I didn't have $3,000.
Dawn Lafreeda
That was the new technology at the time. But there was a man so they couldn't loan me money because I hadn't lived in Texas two years. So there was a man that overheard my conversation who said, you know, he says, my son has a trust fund and what I do is I help people, I charge you a higher interest rate, but I'll loan you money out of my son's trust fund. Well, he did it. I borrowed the $3,000. Him and I became friends. And he says, I'm going to teach you how to borrow money. He says, I'm going to loan you $10,000 and you're going to get it paid off and then I'm going to loan you 25,000 and then I'm going to loan you 100,000 and by the time we're done you're going to be able to borrow money.
Dawn Lafreeda
And he was a huge mentor to me. He's still my friend. His name is Jim Orcutt. Oh, he's in his 80s now. But I learned so much from him and he taught me how to keep my dun and street clean the right way. And you know, everything about what I needed to go out and borrow money.
Marcia Dawood
And so for our listeners, tell us what that means. Keep your dun and bread.
Dawn Lafreeda
So what happens is when you have vendors that you pay, let's say I pay Ecolab, I pay superior uniform. Whatever the company is, they report if I pay timely, like some companies don't report at all. But let's say you're 10 days late, that shows up and it lowers your credit rating business wise on a Dun and Bradstreet. So he would pull my Dun and Brad street oh every 60 days to make sure nobody reported anything that shouldn't have been. Because what happens is sometimes let's say you pay off the loan. It doesn't get reported that it's paid off. It doesn't necessarily mean you've done something bad. It just means you've got to pay attention and make sure if you paid off a loan, they released the UCC that if you have a bad reporting, why do you have it? And you have to call them and get it cleared up.
Dawn Lafreeda
Because vendors make mistakes, creditors make mistakes. So I was always very diligent about watching my debt done in Bradstreet and it was always pretty good. Had a couple of issues where again, it was uccs. The lenders didn't release. Not my fault. But once you clean that up, you look even better and better to prospective lenders.
Marcia Dawood
Ah. So how many Denny's are corporate owned.
Dawn Lafreeda
Today and how many are franchised today? So let's see, today there we. There are about 65 corporate owned stores and the remainder of the fleet, which is about 1350, is all franchise.
Marcia Dawood
Wow.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah.
Marcia Dawood
So I know in angel world, we've had a couple entrepreneurs in the past who've come to us and said, hey, we want to franchise our idea, whatever it is. Which I know for a lot of the angels I've talked to, they get nervous. They think, oh, franchising is so laborious and very costly and things like that. But your experience, you've.
Dawn Lafreeda
I love it for a long time. I love franchising and I'm going to tell you why I love it. So. So let's say I decided to build a restaurant and I called it Dawn's. I would have to create the menu, create the decor, figure out the recipes. What's my sign going to look like? The whole, the whole ball and chain of all of it. Right. When you're with a franchise concept that's all done for you, they've got, first off, a proven track record.
Dawn Lafreeda
There's, there's numbers in place that you can say, okay, the average unit volume of a Denny's is X. You do this many custom customers a week on the average. This is the average rent. You've got P&L's that you can look at. There's a history, there's a track record, so there's a safety in that. But the bigger part of franchising that I love is imagine if I had Dawn's restaurant, how many would I ultimately have versus how many I can have with the Denny's. Now think about this. Also, some of my growth has been from buying restaurants from other franchisees who were ready to retire, buying stores from corporate that they were ready to maybe move out of that market.
Dawn Lafreeda
And then many I built or converted so I can expand quicker as a franchise operation that I ever could. Building all my own sites.
Marcia Dawood
Absolutely.
Dawn Lafreeda
So I love franchising. Yes. There's a premium you pay for it. You know, you pay royalties and advertising. But at the end of the day, I do believe it's very profitable.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah. And then have you built a store from the Ground up?
Dawn Lafreeda
Oh, yeah, many.
Marcia Dawood
Okay, sure.
Dawn Lafreeda
I've built many from the ground up. I've converted many from other concepts into Denny. Sure. I have a mixture in my portfolio.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah. Wow. And how long does that usually take? If you're like, okay, I'm going to go in here. Do you do like, I'm guessing, a market study to see.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah. So we do a demographic package, and anytime you open a new restaurant, Denny's makes you do a pretty extensive package of what do you estimate the sales to be? What are the car counts, what are the aerial shots? How long is it going to take to get a permit? You do a pretty thorough package. And then they have to approve it, evaluate it. They send somebody out to look at the site to make sure it, it meets their specifications. You know, they want to know, is there a hospital nearby, is there a mall, is there a movie theater? Not that it makes a difference, but they want to know everything about the trade area.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah, I'm guessing.
Dawn Lafreeda
And the other thing is, they want to make sure there's not another Denny's so close by that it would encroach upon another franchisee, encroach upon corporate, because you want to have a good success rate. You know, you put a lot of money into a new development and you want to, you want to have the best odds for success.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah. And so how many Denny's restaurants do you own today?
Dawn Lafreeda
I know today it's a lot today. Well, you know, it's interesting. I've owned about 120, but because I've been in business 40 years, this month is my 40 year anniversary of owning my own amazing 40 years. Congratulations. You know, things happen, trade areas move away, bridges are built, you lose an exit. Sometimes you scale back because you're aging up. So today I own about 72.
Marcia Dawood
Wow.
Dawn Lafreeda
Now, I will tell you that I had, right before the pandemic hit, I had 92. And so the pandemic hit us pretty hard. There are areas in small town America that just didn't recover the way bigger cities did. People moved away. Staffing has been difficult, you know, but I still have a nice amount in my portfolio.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah, I would imagine staffing, I mean, we saw it everywhere, that staffing was so challenging.
Dawn Lafreeda
And still, I mean, go into a hotel and how many times do they say, you know, know, well, if you want your room clean, let us know in advance or room service is now a bag brought to your door instead of a cart wheeled in.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah.
Dawn Lafreeda
You know, someone setting it up. So I think it, it speaks to the labor shortages that we're having in the country. And I hope that everything is cyclical and that will change, but it's what we have to deal with now. I mean, the 24 hour model has been hard. People don't want to work on the third shift all the time. So that's been a little more of a struggle for us than say, day shift.
Marcia Dawood
Right, right.
Dawn Lafreeda
But, you know, we're adapting to. To all of that.
Marcia Dawood
And are all of the Denny's open 24 hours?
Dawn Lafreeda
Well, they were pre pandemic, but not anymore.
Marcia Dawood
Not anymore. That's too bad. And then what about. Where are all of your stores located?
Dawn Lafreeda
So I am all my Denny's. I have restaurants in seven states. My Denny's are in six states. So I'm in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Illinois, and my very first restaurant. And I have one restaurant in Arizona that's a non Denny's, but I bought it from Denny's. So it's Denny's because it was the first restaurant I ever bought, and I bought it from them.
Marcia Dawood
Oh, what a great story.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah, it's been a fun, fun, fun journey. You know, people always say to me, hey, you know, you're in the restaurant business. What's your favorite restaurant? And I'm like, are you kidding me? The one that pays my mortgage.
Marcia Dawood
That's right. Yes. So what's some advice that you would have for somebody who is just getting into, even if it's not the restaurant business, but a business where maybe they're female, they're trying to break into this. What's some things that you do?
Dawn Lafreeda
I have a lot of thoughts about that. So first off, if you're looking to get into franchising, I would highly research the company, how long they've been in business, how many locations they have. And I would talk to franchisees, and I'd make sure that I looked at a P and l talk anybody into sharing the data. You know, if it's a. If it's a publicly traded company, that information is usually available. If it's privately held, you have to get it through other means, typically. But I would definitely talk to franchisees in the system. I have shied away from opportunities giving advice to people where they've only had three locations, four locations, because I don't think there's enough track record for me to be able to put my seal of approval on something like that.
Dawn Lafreeda
I want to see a trend. There's so much in business that's cyclical, and unless you've been through somewhat of A cycle. You don't know how things perform in a downturn.
Marcia Dawood
Right, right.
Dawn Lafreeda
And then. So if you're starting your own business and you're not part of a franchise with a track record, I would make sure I do as much due diligence as I possibly could. So, for example, had somebody come to me was going to open a retail store, what does the lease terms look like? How long are you in for it? What's your personal guarantee? What's your investment? How long is it going to take to recoup? You know, I want to say one great thing about franchising that I've learned is once you get to five locations, it's a lot easier to get money. And I say that because the lenders look at the franchise or. And they say, oh, okay, these are a stable company. They have criteria for. To be a franchisee, you usually have to have a certain amount of net worth, certain amount of money in the bank, a certain amount of experience. So they look favorably towards franchises.
Dawn Lafreeda
And a lot of franchise organizations, they have deals in place with lenders where, okay, let's say franchisee doesn't succeed, we'll put our best efforts forward to put someone else in the property so you, Mr. Lender, are at less risk. So there's a lot of great things about franchising that can help somebody get started.
Marcia Dawood
And have you ever helped anyone take their business and turn it into a franchise business?
Dawn Lafreeda
This sort of. It didn't work. So what happened is it became a situation with a partnership that didn't work, which I advised against, but they were headstrong on doing it. So I've never taken them fully to franchising, but I've given an awful lot of advice. There's a. There's a young gal in the film who gives a presentation that's taking her company to franchising. And I put her in contact with a few people and she only had two locations and, you know, kind of advised her on what I thought would be great to help her move the process along. And she's signing, getting development agreements and getting things rolling.
Dawn Lafreeda
So I've offered advice, but I haven't actually been the person taking them. Right, yeah, to that step.
Marcia Dawood
So we talked a little bit before the show. What are some of the projects that you're really passionate about right now? Especially the things that Denny's doing.
Dawn Lafreeda
So people don't realize. Well, so so many passion projects that Denny's is doing. Number one, I'm really proud of our mobile relief diner. So what we have is we have a mobile restaurant that goes around to areas of distress. Hurricanes, floods, fires, tornadoes, cities in need, and we feed the community.
Marcia Dawood
I love that. And yeah, Asheville, just.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah, we were in Asheville. We go all over America with our diner, and it is a mobile restaurant. It's got a dish machine in there. It's got a kitchen. We did a thing in San Antonio because we're pretty passionate about Special Olympics, where we brought the mobile relief diner to San Antonio. We fed all the special athletes, all the law enforcement. And then Denny said, well, you know, if we're taking the mobile relief diner to San Antonio, let's use it as much as we can. Let's pick somewhere else.
Dawn Lafreeda
So we took it to Haven for Hope, which is a homeless center. It's almost like a big campus. And what was interesting about that is that the homeless, while the city helps feed them from food banks and everything, they hadn't had protein. So when we were cooking up bacon and sausage, the homeless were like, we haven't had meat. And it was like, wow. We take for granted the luxuries that we get. And the beautiful part about the mobile relief diner is that our employees work in it. We work in it.
Dawn Lafreeda
It's community effort. And it's just a really wonderful team building community event, as well as helping to serve people in need. And then we're also involved in a project called no Kid Hungry, where we raise money to. So no child in America goes hungry. And we have something really special at Denny's too, where all of our restaurants donate to what's called the power fund, where if we have anybody in the Denny's system that's in need, they can apply for assistance and we give them up to $5,000. So we do a lot to try and help. Yeah. And those are the feel good things that make you feel good about your brand, about your own life, that you're doing something to contribute.
Dawn Lafreeda
And that's also the beautiful thing about being part of a franchise, is there's a group of us and there's a pool of people. And we're not alone. We're pooling resources and doing things together for a bigger impact.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah. Yeah.
Dawn Lafreeda
Like we'll raise millions for no Kid Hungry. I don't know how much we're at now. It's over $11 million, but.
Marcia Dawood
Wow.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah. And we're. We're. We're really excited. We've been a partner with theirs for probably 11 years now.
Marcia Dawood
Amazing.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah.
Marcia Dawood
I don't think people realize just how much Denny's is doing out there.
Dawn Lafreeda
You know, I. I don't think that they do because we don't talk enough about those things. You know, my favorite. I do have a really fun story that I'd love to share, and that's about. I'm sure everybody's heard of Nvidia. You know, it's the trillion dollar company. Well, he started as a busboy at Denny's.
Marcia Dawood
Oh, my gosh.
Dawn Lafreeda
And he created his idea in a booth in Denny's. So great things happen at Denny's for sure. Wow. Wow.
Marcia Dawood
We were just talking about Nvidia on a previous episode because we had a CTO from an AI company come on and talk a lot about the different pieces of AI.
Dawn Lafreeda
Well, Jensen Wong was just at our franchise convention this month. I was just with him. He is the loveliest, most down to earth guy. He brought his whole family to our convention, shared stories about what it was like for him working at Denny's. He came over from, I think it was Taiwan when he was 15 years old, got a job in Seattle. And, you know, people don't understand the power of the restaurant industry. I mean, I always say everyone should work in a restaurant once in their life because you meet people from every walk of life and you get to appreciate different personalities and the way that people believe, you know, you, the poor, the rich, the immigrant, the different types of people that live in our society. And it's great to see the diversity.
Dawn Lafreeda
And it's all in a Denny's. And that's what I loved about it. I met young people, old people, Hispanics, every race, and you just get an appreciation for what they like to eat, what's important to them, things that you wouldn't normally know. Just living in your everyday life. Like, we know in San Antonio, the Hispanics, you have got to have hot sauce.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah.
Dawn Lafreeda
You know, there are things that different ethnicities love to eat. And so I learned so much working at Denny's and with your employees, too. I mean, if you can take somebody that starts at a bus boy as a busboy and builds a trillion dollar company. Yeah, come on.
Marcia Dawood
That's so good, that story. So let's talk a little bit about the movie. Show her the money.
Dawn Lafreeda
Passion project for sure.
Marcia Dawood
Love everything about it. So what made you decide to get involved with the movie?
Dawn Lafreeda
All right, so Catherine Gray, of course.
Marcia Dawood
Yes.
Dawn Lafreeda
She called me and told me she had this project and women only get 2% of venture capital. And, you know, it was a cold call kind of thing. I didn't know her. And I'm Sitting on an airplane, I think I'm flying to LA and I'm talking on the phone to someone, I don't even recall who made Lupita. And I'm saying, you know, she wants me to do this project, says women only get 2% of venture capital money. I'm like, I find that hard to believe and I don't know if I should do the project. Well, I'm getting off the plane and the gentleman taps me on the shoulder and he says, I didn't mean to eavesdrop on your conversation, but I'm a venture capitalist in healthcare and it's absolutely true, women only get 2%. Got off the plane, I called Catherine and I said, you know what, I'm in.
Marcia Dawood
That's so good.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah, it was, you know, it's one of those serendipitous moments where you go, somebody saying, a higher power, you need to do this. And boy, I loved every part of being involved with this project and it was a huge time commitment and I already have a full time job, but it was worth every minute. And the people involved in the film and the women, the founders, I mean, everybody was just a delight.
Marcia Dawood
And your family got to, you know.
Dawn Lafreeda
What'S it like, how great is it to shoot a movie with your family? My sons have cameos in it, my office, of course, the Denny's logos all over the movie. And my best friend, Sharon Gless, Emmy award winning actress, she films it with me. So it's fun to get to film with my family, my best friend and then, you know, it's such a family project in a way that to be on the road with all of them.
Marcia Dawood
Yes.
Dawn Lafreeda
And traveling with the women and hearing their journeys and their stories and what's, what I found fascinating is I really am a founder and now a funder because I founded my own company. And the stories that they share about meeting payroll or I went through all of that so I could, I, you know, I go back to my younger days and of like, oh man, how am I going to make payroll? Or yeah, you know, so it, it was a great journey and it also lets me share with them that even though they're experiencing this now, this will pass and you'll get through this phase. And once you get to the next phase and the next phase, it all just gets easier.
Marcia Dawood
Right, right. And that makes sense.
Dawn Lafreeda
You're able to solve better. Let me say that the resources start coming to you. Just like how once I got to five stores, I was able to borrow money. You know, there's there's tools and resources out there that you learn as you are a young business owner growing into your business.
Marcia Dawood
Yes, totally. And so your family got to participate. And we've been touring around all over the place. And it's fun because at every stream, we see different people. And I mean, the amount of energy that we see from the women and really everybody in the audience. I'm always excited to see guys in the audience and entrepreneurs and everything. And just at the end of the screening when people come up to us and say, hey, you know, I'm so inspired. I had no idea, you know, all of those things.
Marcia Dawood
And then in the film, you and Sharon are actually talking about money.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yes.
Marcia Dawood
And you have a line. It's now a very famous line.
Dawn Lafreeda
It is a famous line. Now it is.
Marcia Dawood
And where you say, go ahead.
Dawn Lafreeda
I love money.
Marcia Dawood
I love money.
Dawn Lafreeda
You know, when I first saw the cut and I saw that in there in the movie, I thought, oh, my goodness, I can't believe. I can't believe they put that in there, because you shoot for days and you never know what is going to wind up in the film or on the floor. And that line wound up in the movie. And it's very interesting because 100% of every screenings, some woman comes up to me and says, thank you for saying that. I feel the same way, but I've been too ashamed to say it or didn't feel I could say it or just. Just feel like it's. You know, people think, oh, I love money. It's a bad thing.
Dawn Lafreeda
But I grew up so poor that money was my ticket to getting out of the lifestyle that I had. And when Sharon tells her story in the movie, she talks about how in her generation, women weren't allowed to talk about money. It was in bad taste. So it's. The film really takes you through how we've progressed. But you look at it being 20, 24, and we're still only getting 2%. We have a long way to go, and we have to continue to work. And there's another line in the movie that I love that isn't my line.
Dawn Lafreeda
It's the line that Wendy Ryan says where if you give a woman $10,000, she makes it go a lot farther because she knows she's not going to get as much as the men. So we are very careful with our money. We work harder because this is our shot. If we don't get our shot, we're done. And so the movie, I think, is very empowering. And I always say, you know, if I Can do it. Anybody can do it.
Marcia Dawood
Yes. Yeah. And I just, I love how we are trying to bring awareness not only to the venture capital world, angel investing world. Let's get more people on the playing field to talk about this. You know, I wrote the book do good While Doing well, Trying to get more people involved.
Dawn Lafreeda
Sure.
Marcia Dawood
And the concept of talking about people's relationship with money, it keeps coming up. And that, that's the one thing that I really happy that the movie has brought out. And I want to seek that conversation continue because I have seen so many women especially feel more empowered just when they see other people talking about it.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah. I think, you know, some women carry shame about money and we have to teach women that it's okay to take their power and say, you know what, I've got a great idea. I want some money too, and you're going to get rich off of me if you don't give me a shot. You're missing a great opportunity. And I don't think women always sell themselves that way. You do get a lot of women who do, but what you have is the silent majority of women who don't even know how to take that first step. They've got a great idea, but they don't know how to get it out there. They don't know how to talk to the lender or find a mentor.
Dawn Lafreeda
And that's where I think we have to go a little deeper, you know, and seeing the film, I've come across a lot of women who like, oh, franchising, that is an option for me. And I always say, you know, I wasn't smart enough to create my own million dollar idea. I had to take someone else's idea. But, but there's ways and tools for everybody to make money. You just have to find what works for you in your life and your skill set.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah. And your other famous line in the movie is where you say, if you're gonna take make a bet, you need to bet on Don La Freedom.
Dawn Lafreeda
Well, that's right. Because, you know, know I was not willing to fail.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah.
Dawn Lafreeda
It was not an option for me. So I tried. I, you know, one thing I believe that I am is I, whatever I say I'm going to do, I'm going to do it and you can count on me. And I have so 911 or not 9 11, 911 too. But the pandemic happened and I would have landlords call me at midnight. Are you going to be able to pay rent? Are you closed? How long are you closed? I take, take Every landlord call and every lender call whenever they call 24 7. Wow. Because I want them to know they have a partner in me.
Dawn Lafreeda
And I'm not going to bury my head in the sand. I'm going to share a really powerful story that I Learned years ago. After 9 11. After 9 11, I had 30% of my restaurants, maybe 40% of my restaurants. A large percentage were by airports, and airports shut down. They laid off flight attendants, and travel really went down for several years. And I was going to be late on my big loan payment to my lender.
Marcia Dawood
Wow.
Dawn Lafreeda
So I call my lender and I say, I'm going to be 10 days late on my payment. And my lender, my contact at the bank said, you know, Don, we love people like you that call us and tell us you're going to be late. You can't believe how many people we have to hunt down who bury their head in the sand. He said, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do for you. You I'm going to fly out to see you with a team of people, and we're going to restructure things so that you never have to have this phone call again. Wow. And they helped me. And that came from me being proactive and saying, I'm in trouble.
Dawn Lafreeda
911 happened. Sales are down drastically as a result of travel, all around the stock market going down, flights being a fourth full. And they did. They came out and they helped me. Now I had to, you know, pay a little longer than I would have, but the stress of. Of how am I going to make my payment and make it on time went away. And that just came from me picking up the phone and saying, I'm sorry I'm going to be late, but I'm letting you know.
Marcia Dawood
Amazing.
Dawn Lafreeda
Yeah. So there are things that you can do to where people trust you.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah.
Dawn Lafreeda
And they feel even more confident. And, you know, they were a great lender partner for me for years, and they helped me grow to a lot of stores because they believed in me and they trusted that they could always find me. And there's always going to be a rainy day in business.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah.
Dawn Lafreeda
Whether it's oil goes bust and it becomes my opportunity. A financial crisis in 2008. 9 11, a pandemic. There's always going to be something. And so you have to be prepared and you have to have a plan.
Marcia Dawood
Exactly.
Dawn Lafreeda
And you are the plan. Right. You are your life support.
Marcia Dawood
That's right. Well, Don, you are a wealth of knowledge. Thank you so much for coming the podcast. No, you are not. You're absolutely I've been in business a.
Dawn Lafreeda
Long time, so I've seen a lot.
Marcia Dawood
Well, you're wonderful and you're absolutely beautiful. And thank you so much for being on.
Dawn Lafreeda
Thank you for having me. It's such a treat. And congratulations on the book and the movie and I'm so glad to be a part of it with you. And mostly thank you just for inviting me and letting me share my story with your with your audience.
Marcia Dawood
Oh, I love it. Thank you so much.
Dawn Lafreeda
Thanks, Marcia.