Stay-at-Home Denver Mom Owns a Semi-Absentee Franchise in Tampa!

Can This Stay-At-Home Mom of 7 Own a Flooring Franchise in Tampa… and Still Have Time for Family??

They say the busiest people are the most likely to get even more done. But owning a flooring franchise, while homeschooling seven children and helping out a children’s theater takes busy to the next level. Who can possibly run a successful home improvement franchise while still having the time to manage a large family and all their activities?

Meet Tiffany Matthews.

Tiffany lives in gorgeous Denver, Colorado with her husband Nate and their seven children. And, as of pretty recently, she owns a plum, faith-based Footprints Floors franchise territory in sunny Tampa, Florida.

Wondering how that’s possible?

Well, Tiffany won’t actually be handling day-to-day operations herself. As a semi-absentee Franchise Owner, she will work behind the scenes to grow her Footprints Floors empire while her brother-in-law Dan Wheeler takes care of the day-to-day operations.

“We’re building a home in Florida,” Tiffany says. “It’s a second home for us. Our partner [Dan Wheeler] already moved down to Florida. So, he’s down there now, full time.”

Tiffany plans to expand her daily role with Footprints Floors in the future when the children are older. But for now, she wants to spend her time with her family and the local community.

“I’m home. So that’s my primary job and I network a lot as a mom,” says Tiffany. “I’ve been a dance teacher and I’ve dabbled in dance ever since. I’m currently helping with our kids’ Youth Theater program.”

Tiffany is pretty active in her Denver community. In fact, that’s how this all came about. Footprints Floors started in Denver, and our corporate office is still headquartered there. It’s where Founder Bryan Park lives with his family. And Tiffany and her husband Nate happen to be close friends with the Parks.

“We’ve actually known Bryan and Kelli Park for over five years. And Kelli runs a theater program where we work together. When my kids are in Youth Theater, it’s with Kelli Park.” Tiffany says. “We really love Bryan and Kelli so much! Just as people I really enjoy them and we’re very involved with their family. I saw her last night and the night before. I’ll see her tonight and tomorrow.” 

A Franchise Opportunity With a Foundation of Friendship

The two families first met at church and have enjoyed a growing friendship ever since. During this time, they’ve witnessed the growth and challenges that Bryan faced while building Footprints Floors Christian Franchise.

“We met them before they started franchising. When we were getting to know them, they told us about what he was doing with Footprints,” Tiffany says.

“As Bryan was starting to figure all that out, he would talk to my husband and work through some of it. And Kelli would tell me about the stresses of the ‘wife’ part of all this and we’d chat about that and pray with her,” she says. 

Tiffany and Nate have had an inside view of Bryan’s development of Footprints, and have literally witnessed the flooring franchise get built from the ground floor up! Naturally, this piqued their interests.

“We’ve known about Footprints for a really long time, and we thought it sounded like such a great, amazing opportunity,” she says.

“We loved everything about the business model. But we’re like, there’s just no way we can do that in our life right now,” Tiffany added. “Until this past May when we were able to talk with Dan, and everything just kind of lined up perfectly – we’re like, yes, we can finally do it!”

Semi-Absentee Franchise…Total Involvement!

Footprints Franchise Owners need to be passionate about their businesses and very involved. But this doesn’t necessarily mean doing all the day-to-day work.

Tiffany’s brother-in-law coming on board to handle the daily, more hands-on work meant that she could become a semi-absentee Franchise Owner without sacrificing her important time at home with family.

“We were all hanging out for our son’s 13th birthday, and Dan was talking about his job, and how he just wanted to do something different,” Tiffany says. “Everything clicked into place within a couple of weeks! We’re just amazed at how everything lined up perfectly.”

Thanks to her close relationship with Bryan and Kelli Park, Tiffany knew quite a lot about Footprints. But we still put her through our structured, New Owner education process. It’s designed to teach new Owners the ins and outs of running a flooring franchise, give them a roadmap for growth, and get them started quickly. 

“We did everything the way everyone else would. We definitely knew a little bit more about it, but Nate and I didn’t know the actual day-to-day [responsibilities]. Finding out the day-to-day of how to run this business just got us way more excited!” Tiffany says.

“The massive amount of support we have is amazing. Every time I learn more, I’m blown away. I just got a call this morning when I was driving my kids to a school program, about Angie’s List leads and things like that. All this stuff is already set up for us, so we really just kind of jump in and go.”

Own a Flooring Franchise With Outstanding Support

Those leads were generated by our corporate support office. Our industry-leading call center is one of many ways we support Franchise Owners and help their business grow. 

Not having to be on-site to do her own business development is one of the things making it possible for Tiffany to be a semi-absentee Franchise Owner.

“We’ve owned rental properties in the past. We’ve looked at doing a franchise before and it just wasn’t a great fit, or we didn’t love the model. We just like that there is so much support with Footprints! I know Bryan and Kelli’s vision behind wanting to be involved and to be mentors, not just sit back and collect a paycheck. We really appreciate the heart behind that.” Tiffany says. 

“My husband has a very entrepreneurial mindset, and he doesn’t ever like to put all his eggs in one basket. I’ve always tried to stay sharp on some level so that if something ever happened, I’d be able to help support our family. So, we’ve always looked at other opportunities,” she added.

The Matthews family has been ready to take this step. They only needed a business opportunity that was practical and feasible for their lives.

Until her family is ready to move to Tampa, Tiffany can keep an eye on things from her home in Colorado. 

“I prefer more of what Dan is doing. But our seven children are still being homeschooled and we’re raising them,” Tiffany says. “We’re still trying to figure out life between Colorado and Florida, how this looks for now, how we can support the business from afar, and how to be there to support in person when we can.”

We Make it Easy to Own a Flooring Franchise that Doesn’t Own YOU!

This is still Tiffany’s franchise. She might not be pulling up to homeowner consultations or overseeing subcontractor crews right now, but she can do quite a bit from afar.

“When I’m in Florida the plan is that I’ll be doing sales and stuff with Dan when I can. We’re just trying to figure out how that looks. A lot of the numbers, bookkeeping, and things like that will be done here, remotely in Colorado,” Tiffany says.

“Dan’s already down in Florida. He’s coming back to Colorado to do more training for a couple of weeks before we officially launch, but they just closed on their house and moved their family out there. And we’re just finishing up the last couple of things before we officially launch.”

Tiffany can take things over whenever she’s ready. Until then, a semi-absentee franchise investment in a different location is the perfect way for her family to prepare for their long-term future.

And after devoting almost two decades to raising her children hands-on, it’s a change that she’ll enjoy.

“I absolutely love construction. My parents were general contractors and were building homes and so I kind of grew up around the housing construction and stuff, and I just love it,” she says. “I love the HGTV channel, I love watching home improvements, and I love everything that has to do with it. It’s my dream to be able to work with my hands and do housing stuff.”

Tiffany isn’t sure when that will happen. But in the meantime, she’s thrilled to be joining her close friends in their business.

“It’s huge to be joined with the company we so strongly align with. We align with their morals, beliefs and everything Footprints stands for.”

“We know the people we’re essentially working with and that’s huge to us,” she adds. “We don’t have fears with them, especially after being there firsthand through the years. We know the nitty-gritty and we’ve talked about it prior to being Owners.”

“Nate and I are actually pretty similar in age to the Parks. I just look at my friend Kelli and have to say how proud we are of them with the company. It’s so great seeing the explosion of the company,” Tiffany added.

“And it’s pretty exciting to be able to hitch our wagon to theirs and just run together. It’s kind of surreal.”

Are you ready to invest in one of our exclusive flooring franchise territories but not ready to do all the daily management yourself? A semi-absentee franchise opportunity might be right for you.

Please visit our franchise website to discover how you can secure your flooring franchise today.

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