Meet our Franchisees — Kvik Fredericia
Welcome to The Sociable Kitchen® - a podcast by Kvik. I’m Julie Broberg.
We’re back with another story from one of our talented franchisees. This time, we sat down with Morten Weng, our franchisee in Fredericia, here in Denmark, to hear his story. Morten had multiple careers - he was a carpenter, a tour guide, a cleaning service salesman, a disco manager and he owned a café before landing as a kitchen seller at Kvik Fredericia in 2013.
As you’ll hear in this episode, Morten has big ambitions and sets yearly goals for himself and his team. It all started at his interview for the job back in 2013, when he set some pretty high goals for himself. But we’ll let him tell that story…
Morten: Five years from now, what are you doing? And I said in five years from now, I'm going to be the best sales guy in Denmark for Kvik. And he said OK. What about 10 years? And I said in 10 years, the keys to the shop are in my pocket and you are out.
And he said, "OK. Fine."
Julie: And that's exactly what happened, wasn't it?
Morten: And actually the same - exactly what happened. Only the five years from now with the best sales guy, it actually was six years. I started here in October 2013 and in 2020, I was pronounced as the best selling guy in Denmark. So it was six years but not 5, but...
Julie: But do you have to count that first year if it was only October, November, December?
Morten: But the keys to the shop actually happened 9 1/2 years and not ten years. And I was actually using it on the day that we were signing the contract and the retail consultant Dennis from Kvik was down here and we were sitting here, Lasse, me and him and he was like now you have to put your signature and I said to Lasse just before he wrote his signature and I hadn't put mine on it. And just before I put it on, I said, you remember what I said to you 9 1/2 years ago?
And he was like, no. I was saying, in 10 years from now, this is going to be my job and then I signed it and I put it on. I said I was right and he was like, “Oh my God, you are.” Yeah. So it was fun. But it's more to say that it's always been my target.
*Note that this page is a transcript of the podcast episode.
Julie: It wasn’t only at his interview that Morten set ambitious business goals for himself, today, he sets yearly goals for himself and his store and has a very clear plan for how to achieve them. Part of that plan is being very involved in the local community. So he’s focused on sponsoring all of the local sports teams he can, so every child’s jersey has a Kvik logo on it. It’s a key part of his B2B strategy as well.
Morten: I'm more that guy that I invest invest invest. So we already have sponsorship contracts with every football club in the area. We have it with tennis. We have it with golf. We have like every…
Julie: So you've got Kvik on lots of T-shirts in the area.
Morten: I have a Kvik like all over the city and I spend like almost the same amount as our marketing budget. I spend on sponsorships. So we are all over the city and we are telling and everybody knows us and we are one of the best shops and Denmark with the B2B customers. It’s almost 35% of the business is B2B. So we have all these things.
Julie: Is that right? OK, that's great.
Morten: So we have a whole other case. Mm-hmm. But we are making a plan and we have…
Julie: You have some ideas.
Morten: Find a plan together. So I think in 2025 we are ready to rock the world, yeah.
Julie: Can you reveal how you're going to rock the world or is it a secret plan?
Morten: Yeah, but now the plan is roughly in the making. Signe started up some plans for the next two months making a lot of data to find out where we are not using so much force as we could be.
I'm seeking out in the networks group finding out where could we maybe involve ourselves more?
I haven't made the plan of how you get the customer, but I have been more seeking to ensure the company. So my main goal the last year has been to like secure the business..
Julie: Right. And part of that was when you took over, you redid the store - you put in the new master store concept.
Morten: Yeah, we redid the store. Every B2B customer we have, I've been over meeting personally and talking about how or should we do anything better?
Julie: OK. What kind of projects do you have on the horizon and how can we help?
Morten: But also seeking should we be better at something? And some of the big big customers we have I've been moving on to Bordo, the new colour we got. So, because we got a segment there where we, on the price, are so much better than many of our competitors. So I knew that if we're going to move these two big customers to Bordo and we get them into liking a colour instead of the normal white.
Julie: Which colour are they going for?
Morten: Right now, it’s mostly arizona beige and the clay. And they totally bought into it. So now I'm in the position that they are looking for colours and it's all that we are delivering.
And if suddenly some of our competitors should go over to them and try to offer colours. I know that because of Kvik and where we are in the market, my price is like 15-20% lower. So it's not going to be an issue.
Julie: So you're working on relationships with your B2B partners.
Morten: I've been working a lot of relationships securing the B2B customers because it's so big a part of the shop.
Julie: B2B is such an essential part of the business for Morten, so it’s just smart to put extra time into those relationships.
Another of this year’s goals has been ensuring that the people who work for him are satisfied — it’s a big part of his recipe for success.
Morten: But that's been my main focus. And then my personnel, of course, making them happy and everything.. So, now the whole machinery is ready for 2025.
Julie: Well-oiled.
Morten: It's well-oiled and now we just need to get the gasoline, which is the customer, and then that's going to be the 2025 plan. And that's in the making.
Julie: Wow, that's awesome. You're able to do that because of your experience here in the store. What would you recommend to somebody who's coming fresh in as a franchisee? What should they do when they don't have the same background? I mean, is there any advice you could give to get into that faster?
Morten: Hopefully many of the new franchises which will come in are used to being self-employed or having a company before because I don't think that Kvik or Jesper or who it is just will say OK, you never tried this before, here's your shop, try it. And so, of course, you have this background for leading a company or leading employees in - some kind of leadership.
But I think the most important thing that I can give is learn how to sell. My best advice would be if you have to be the captain of the ship, you have to sell something.
Julie: So you think that the franchisee should actually also meet with customers, draw kitchens and sell kitchens themselves?
Morten: Spend a lot more time on that point. Yeah. Because if the salespersons are down and they're not selling anything, there needs to be somebody who can say, OK. Now we just need to get income. We need to have some sales and if you see the Danish shops right now that the market is struggling, but the shops which are going good if you look at the top 50 on the salespersons, the top 15 are almost all franchisees.
Julie: Is that right?
Morten: It's a key skill they should have.
Is a key skill and is also a lot easier to show your sales staff that OK, it's actually provable. Maybe we're not in the market, which is good right now, but you can still sell. But it's a lot easier if you can stand up like this, picture on the wall that's saying, “OK, look, my Maze is good. My closing rate is good. I still get home at night seeing my family. I still have time for lunch." It's a lot easier to teach other people if they can see that you actually can do the things you're trying to teach.
So it's very hard selling an idea of selling kitchens to a staff if they don’t know anything about it and they say it's impossible, give me some good advice. And you're saying “I don't know.”
So I think that being a franchisee, especially in Kvik, you need to be good at so many things, you need to have a foot in every part of the business. My opinion, my own private opinion, is that when you're self-employed you need to be good at almost every part of the shop. Maybe not mastering every part, but you need to know how everything works. So if somebody gets sick or somebody stops, you can actually almost drive.
Julie: You can step in and you can take over.
Morten: You can step in and and take over everything and and if you can do that and then it's the sky’s the limit.
Working towards clear goals
Julie: Mastering every aspect of the business might sound like a lot, but it doesn’t mean that Morten is working 80 hours a week as the franchisee. It just means he has to be very organised. Luckily, that suits him very well.
Morten: Everything is structured. There's a template. I'm super organised. There's a template for everything in my life and I'm still having a day off every Thursday playing golf. I still see my son. I still go to football with him. I still see my wife. I have 5 weeks of vacation a year..
Julie: You're super organised.
Morten: Some evenings when my wife is at work or she's seeing something on Netflix or whatever and my son has gone to bed I sometimes take one or two hours at the office back home. So I think roughly, I don't know, I'm working 40-50 hours on average a week.
When I'm off in my private life structure for me is like nothing. I'm known for being the guy always coming two minutes or one minute before I have to be there.
Julie: And you have this structure really in place in your professional life and then you let go of it a little bit and relax in your private life. That's probably a good balance.
Morten: But in my shop then everything is balanced so of course it comes on when you're working at the same thing so many years. Of course you're getting better every year.
But I also think that it's different from person to person, but I’ve always been curious about working with myself so my I always, every year, 2-3 times a year, set some goals for myself personally, that this year I want to be better at this part or learn this part or something and all these things helps myself evolving and structuring.
Julie: And it's like your personal drive. Yeah. Is it? And they are related to business or or you decide you're going to run an Ironman or…
Morten: Yeah, it’s more business, yeah.
Julie: So what are your goals for this year?
Morten: My three goals from this year were securing the B2B segment, evolving it, getting a bigger baseline for it, a target line. The other part was securing the employees, so we're sure that they're gonna be here in five years. And the last part was actually evolving the company, selling more, but that's the part right now where it's hard. It’s not going to be possible. Even though I don't like that word. But the goal is not…
Julie: You're not going to reach the goal that you set?
Morten: No. And even then, I hate to say that because then your thoughts are gonna be wrong when you're saying something is not reachable. You're getting into this bad habit. So I don't like that word. But I can see that it's not possible this year but then it's going to be possible next year.
Julie: But I mean, you do face the realities of the market, right?
Morten: Sometimes something is just bigger than yourself.
Morten: The franchisee, the store owner who has a good company and actually is good at their job, they’re gonna be fine and they're gonna tune in on other things right now because the sales is the sales.
But what are we then going to do? We're going to do something else. So I've got some other ideas that yeah maybe new sponsor contracts, securing B2B customers and working with some of the daily things that we have from telephone lines to everything, everything where I could maybe find some economy or save some money. So I've been working like everything.
Our finance department is in Kvik and remember at the start of the year that Maria, who is the bookkeeper, I called her and said OK, just so you know, from now on, the Visa card that people are paying with down here, we got a new provider.
So I called and she was like, but don't you have NETS, which everybody has? I was like, no, I changed it to Verifone and she was like, why?
Because I'd made this Excel sheet with every payment for the last year and fee and everything, and I could actually see that we could save 350 Danish crowns a month. And she was like, “So you did all this and it was a very big Excel sheet and you did all of that - you are like selling €3 million a year. You have a good interest, you have a good EBIT everything, but you can save 3000 Danish crowns, 500 Euros a year.”
I was like, “yes!” Nice. So I've been down to all these very tiny details because if I could find 500 Euros a year, it's gonna be in my own interest, so I've been working on other things this year. The people who are at good driving the business, they're going to move forward, of course it's going to be a year where it's not going to be as good as normal, but I can only speak for myself. I'm very happy.
Competition welcome!
Julie: The Fredericia metro area has a population of around 50,000 people, and Morten’s Kvik store is the only kitchen store in town. This sounds like it would be an advantage, but we asked Morten whether he wished there was a competitor or two nearby.
Morten: Good question because many, many of my friends and also business associates sometimes say to me. Of course, everybody knows me in this town as their kitchen, the kitchen guy. But many say something like you're also pretty lucky because there's one kitchen store that people know about in Fredericia. We have 50 thousand citizens in this town, and maybe many say that you're so lucky there's only you. If you look at the car salesperson, or the shops or grocery stores it’s like 30 but I see it in a whole other way. I don't see myself as lucky. I see that I have to be the best every fucking time, because if you bought a kitchen in Fredericia, I'm the one who delivered it, so I cannot. I cannot hide.
Julie: You can't mess up.
Morten: Hide. I cannot hide. I have to ensure that every time it's 110%.
We need to be the best at everything and we have to promise everything we have to keep our promises. Everything has to be perfect.
Julie: You have to deliver every time.
Morten: So why I'm actually hoping for competition to open next to me because there's a free shop.
Julie: Hint hint. (laughs)
Morten: Because they're going to bring, they would bring customers because then there's two. People want to check out, and they're also going to bring some of their B2B customers which are used to getting stuff at that shop. But I know what we're good at and I know that we can be competitive and I know that we can beat many of our competitors.
So if I got the opportunity to get a competitor next to me, I know of course maybe I will lose some, but I will also win a lot.
Julie: If any competitors out there are listening, there is an available building, just next door to Morten’s Kvik store, so just bring it on!
Julie: A few days after our visit, Morten told our VP of Sales for North that he was living his best life as a franchisee and while we unfortunately didn’t get that on tape, we did ask him a bit more about his plans for 2025.
Morten: If I want to move forward. I love being here and I'm gonna be here for many, many years and never want to go outside the shop. But my biggest, that's also one of the 2025 plans. I need to find out if I want to evolve.
Seeking new markets, for example, in Middelfart and some of Fyn, because we are very, very good at B2B in Fredericia, OK.
Julie: But just across the bridge, you're not?,
Morten: But just across the bridge, we are not.. It's an open Savannah.
Julie: Post-corona, the market has been a bit quiet, but it’s good to know there’s an open savannah waiting for Morten, just across the Little Belt bridge. With the market back down to pre-corona growth rates, it might seem like a scary time to start out as a new franchisee, but Morten disagrees.
Morten: Maybe some very clever people will say that I'm wrong, but I think the best time to start up in a new brand in your own shop or something is actually when the market is quiet. You're not being thrown to the lions, so now you have time to learn all these aspects.
Even though I knew all the machinery, if Lasse had come to me during Corona, of course I would have said yes, but had he come to me, middle of Corona? Of course he didn't because he was earning a lot of money.
Julie: Yeah, he was making big bucks.
Morten: But had he come to me saying, OK, now it's now, now is the time. I'm almost sure that I would maybe have run screaming away, but of course I would come back. But that would have been very, very wild because it was so, so crazy.
Yeah, the machinery was just running. You didn't get time to think. We made a lot of mistakes. Countertop mistakes and everything because it went so fast.
Julie: It just was too fast.
Morten: So it's too too fast. We didn't have enough hands. We didn't have enough carpenters, pre-mounters, staff, everything was just so crazy. .
Julie: And then the appliances were all back ordered and…
Morten: If you started there and not knowing what I have because I've been there so many years, I think many people would have run screaming away three or four months after and saying that's not me, this is too much.
Julie: I can't do this, it’s’ too much.
Morten: Right. I think right now is a good time because it's quiet and there's time to learn. There's quiet. There's time to fine tune. So I would say I think is a good time right now for new franchisees, yes.
It takes X-factor
Julie: We always say that we are looking for three things in our new franchisees - leadership experience, retail experience and kitchen experience. Kitchen experience is the least important, as we can teach that to you. But we are also looking for something else, that indefinable X-factor. Our country team knows this and they like to send new franchisees to train with Morten, hoping some of his X-factor rubs off on them.
Morten: Morten, We know that you're Superman, but it's very, very, very, very hard to learn everybody else to be Superman.. So sometimes we just say don't look at how Morten is doing his things because we don't know, but he's doing them so, but just learn something from him.
Julie: But maybe you have. I think Holger calls it X-factor.
Morten: Yeah, X-factor. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah.
Julie: And maybe it's The X Factor, right? Or it's the…what is it that the Gen. Zs are calling it? Rizz - charisma.
Morten: Charisma also but doing it in a fun way because of course….
Julie: And it's very indefinable. It's hard to say what that is, right? It's what you're called, udstråling, right?
Morten: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Only I just pronounce it as my OCD at doing everything perfectly. That's much easier for me to just pronounce it that. But,I think it's right that there needs to be some X-factor in some way.
Or hunger in paradise as Jens-Peter says, but you still need to have this drive that each day needs to be a better day than it was yesterday. And or as I say I can also have a bad morning at home with the family…
Julie: Everyone can.
Morten: But I'm still that way when I come here and I'm still here 11 years after still here. When I put my key in the door in the morning and I turn it, I always put a smile on and I'm ready to take the day on, and then when I'm at work, everything is 110 percent. And when I'm closing the shop and going home at night, I'm still there. Where I can say, “fuck.”
But I'm very, very, very professional in my relationship when it comes to work. But I'm also very hungry everyday and I've said before I was, I would sit down now and sign the franchise contract for the next 15 years because I know 15 maybe that’s too much, 10 years, but I know what I want and I'm still striving for it and I'm still have the drive and I still want to.
Julie: You know what you want, and you're still striving towards it. You'll conquer Fyn
Morten: Yeah, I still want to challenge myself and I still want to be better at the small mechanic parts.
But I also think that's one of the reasons why the company is going as well as it is going today that I cannot be the best. I know early on and I still know I cannot be the best selling in amount value in Kvik. that’s not gonna be possible. I'm a shop in Fredericia and Herning, Copenhagen and everything they’re so much larger areas, I can never be the best selling in amount in Kvik. But I could be the best shop on closing rate. I can be the best shop on MAZE. I can be the best shop on index amount, on all these different parts. All these I can be the best at so I want to be the best at all these parts.
It's much funnier for me also to sell €3 million a year and earn 500,000 Euros instead of selling at 10 million Euros and earning 100 Euros.
So the index numbers are so important, and that's back to all this machinery to know everything about the business and seeking every opportunity and using money, more money than the normal 1% marketing on sponsorships and all this. You have to invest money to earn money. That's bottom line.
Julie: That seems like a really good note to end on.
A big thank you to Morten for sharing his story with us. We can’t wait to see how 2025 unfolds for you and your team at Kvik Fredericia.
A Kvik franchise is a big commitment, but Kvik’s One Team is behind you every step of the way, from choosing the perfect location to creating your business plan and securing financing and all the way to your opening day and beyond.
And you don’t necessarily need to have prepared yourself for the task by spending ten years in a Kvik store like Morten did. If you’ve got leadership and retail experience and the drive and desire to be your own boss, have a look at our website and see if there’s an opportunity in your area. We’re looking both for franchisees to take over existing stores, like Morten did, or to open new stores in a new area. Just go to Kvik.com and click on your country to see what’s available.
Dreaming of being your own boss like Morten?
We have ambitious expansion plans and we are always looking for new franchisees to open new stores or take over existing stores, like Morten did.
Curious?
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