Franchise Articles

For most of her 40-year career, Linda Read says she has had to work harder, be smarter, and produce better results than the men in her field. Today she's the largest Auntie Anne's franchisee in California.
While she has seen improvement in attitudes toward women in business over the past four decades, she's also endured some seriously backward behavior in her earlier career as development director, first at a law school and then at two hospital foundations.
"I remember a man in a job interview asking, 'Are you sure a woman can ask a man for money?'" says Read. These days, such a question is not only verboten, hardly anyone even thinks to ask it anymore.
Proof of business success can be found in production, says Read, who operates 11 Auntie Anne's pretzel stores...

Wendy Odell Magus is in the driver's seat, a position she relishes--and excels at. With more than two decades in marketing, she understands both the consumer and franchise sides of marketing and communication. This background has come in handy for her this year as she steers Franchise Update's 3rd annual Franchise Consumer Marketing Conference as its 2013 chair. The event takes place this June 25-26 at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead in Atlanta.
Magus was selected for her proven understanding of strategic marketing planning and implementation, honed on the job at brands like Sylvan and now Kiddie Academy, where she has been since 2008 and serves as vice president of marketing. Her goal as conference chair is to ensure that the CEOs, presidents, and marketing executives who attend take home "actionable initiatives," as well as create new, meaningful relationships with other marketing professionals and suppliers who will be there...

The role of the leader is to create a smooth operating and empowered organization that frees employees from obstacles and barriers to their personal productivity. The presence of harassing behaviors and those who would use them against their fellow employees destroys any and all empowerment and organizational cohesiveness a leader builds.
Harassment in any form humiliates and frustrates not only the victim but the employees forced to witness these behaviors on a consistent and regular basis. A "conspiracy of silence" typically develops that creates an organizational tolerance of harassment even when corporate policies are in place to prevent harassment in any form from occurring.
While harassment may not be tolerated at the higher levels of management, it can be present in the lower echelons of the organization...

The primary concern most fast food business and franchise owners encounter is the balance of front of the house demands and back of the house operations. Both of these areas require attention and both serve as pillars within the operation. For franchise owners, many of you can multiply this by two or more depending on the number of operational units you own.
This is why most franchise owners perceive many of the back of the house necessities as daunting tasks, many of which are taking up valuable time that could be spent managing food costs, employees, and meeting customer expectations. Although a majority of franchise owners employ an in-house human resource member, the process of following up and delegating still exists. This prompts the question; So how much time does an in-house human resource and payroll processor really save you?
What if you could reduce the cost and time spent managing these tasks and also protect your businesses from non-compliance when managing employees? Would you?
Let's face it franchising is tough, not to mention the ever-growing list of demands from all levels of legal accountability - including employees...

When Tony Lutfi was asked back in 2009 where he'd like to be in five years, he said 100 units. At that time he had 52. Boy does he mean business. Today his MarLu Investment Group operates 134 franchise units including Arby's, Church's Chicken, Jack in the Box, Little Caesars, Sizzler, Sears Appliance Showrooms, and Sears Hardware & Appliance.
"We accomplished that goal in three years," he says today, "in part because we keep the same focus on culture that has kept us in business and away from trouble." Lutfi's culture promotes teamwork and cross-functionality with a sense of ownership. His managers treat the business as if they own it and, he says, that has been the driving factor behind their cost controls and the real engine for their growth...

The White House and IFA recently announced that 290,000 veterans and military spouses have been hired or trained in the franchise business since the launch of the White House Joining Forces initiative in 2011.
The IFA and more than 500 franchised businesses that are part of IFA's VetFran strategic initiative, were part of the first private sector commitments to the White House Joining Forces initiative on Veterans Day in 2011. The IFA and its membership pledged to hire and recruit 80,000 veterans and military spouses by 2014, including 5,000 wounded warriors as team members and franchise small business owners. In the first year alone, nearly 65,000 veterans have started careers in franchising - including 4,314 as franchise business owners using discounts offered by VetFran member companies...

Papa Murphy's Take 'N' Bake Pizza must be doing something right. In fact, the country's fifth-largest pizza chain is doing a lot of things right.
The Vancouver, Wash.-based pizza chain, with 1,350 units in 38 states, Canada, and Dubai, recently ranked first in two consumer surveys. Technomic's 2013 Consumer Restaurant Brand Metrics Report named Papa Murphy's the top chain overall among full-service and limited-service restaurants. Papa Murphy's also was ranked the #1 pizza chain in the 2013 Consumer Picks survey from Nation's Restaurant News and WD Partners. That follows previous awards, including Zagat's top-rated pizza chain in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The brand is doing something right with its franchisees as well, earning Franchise Business Review's Franchisee Satisfaction Award several years running...

Peter Holt received an early Christmas present late last year when Tasti D-Lite CEO Jim Amos announced he was stepping down and that Holt had been selected to take the reins of the 25-year-old brand. But for Holt, the moment also was bittersweet.
"Jim Amos has been there with me since I first got into franchising back in the 1980s," says Holt. "He's a dear friend and mentor and I have enjoyed working alongside him all these years."
Holt's franchising career has taken him from his first job with the IFA to Brice Foods (I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! and Java Coast) to Mail Boxes Etc. to a stint with a private equity firm before coming to Tasti D-Lite in 2007. Until last year, he had served as COO at the company, where he led the 2011 acquisition of Planet Smoothie and the integration of the two brands...

The 3rd annual Franchise Consumer Marketing Conference is right around the corner... in Atlanta, at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, this June 25-26.

All the information you need for this year's event - agenda, brochure, speakers, venue, registration - is already online, so instead of repeating that here, to give you a sense of the energy, enthusiasm, and creativity of last year's conference, here's a look back at last year's conference.

Since its launch in June 2011, the Franchise Consumer Marketing Conference has become a must-attend favorite of chief marketing officers, brand managers, and marketing managers. Increased attendance by both franchise marketing executives and sponsors were a testament to the event's rapid growth...

We all know that social media links influence our rankings in search engines. They can increase search rankings when customers search for you, both in the local business directories as well as organically. This is because Google has started to give "social rank" authority, or credit for having authority in the social networks.

So what exactly does this mean for franchise marketers? It means that if you have a large following on Twitter, Facebook and Google+; and/or if you are associated with other high authority figures; and if your posts are shared, then you are considered an "authority" with Google and you will get credit for that. Not only will you get credit in the social networks, but organically in the search rankings as well...

A survey of 437 service industry franchisees conducted by Yodle in December 2012 revealed that 9 out of 10 respondents said online marketing support was a key factor in choosing a franchise brand. Major insights from the first Yodle Franchisee Survey include the following:

1) Franchisees are putting a high premium on online marketing support, and franchise networks must respond accordingly.

More than half of franchisees (58%) view online marketing as "very important" or "important" to the success of their business, while another 27% said it was "somewhat important." A vast majority (89%) also responded that corporate online marketing is an important factor in choosing a franchisor - indicating that it's imperative for franchisors seeking new franchisees to demonstrate their commitment to online marketing...

Small Businesses Need Social Media Help
Research by email marketing giant Constant Contact reveals that 60% of small businesses need help with social media marketing. Small businesses often find the time commitment needed to make good use of social networking greater than they anticipate, and many have trouble allocating resources and time to it. Also, social media continues to evolve quickly, and businesses often find their choices and opportunities confusing and hard to understand. Finally, it's rare that social media marketing drives sales directly: ROI may be hard for a small business to identify. Understandably, it's hard for them to have the patience to reap the benefits of sustained, strategically sound campaigns. Learn more here...

In my 20-plus years of teaching and consulting with business owners and hiring managers about how to "hire tough so they can manage easy," I've discovered there are 10 commonplace mistakes almost everyone makes that are guaranteed to result in bad hiring decisions and waste untold time, money, and effort. Thank God I've never had a client who's made all these mistakes at once, but it really only takes two or three to sabotage your efforts to hire great people. Are you guilty of any of the following?

"If you're not hospitable, you're in the wrong game."

If President Obama decided to name an Ambassador of Franchising, John "JD" Draper, with his dapper attire, mile-wide smile, and booming voice would surely make the "short list" of top candidates. At least someone in Washington is listening: Draper was just voted onto the board of the IFA Educational Foundation's Diversity Institute.
Draper has been a student of franchising since his first job out of Wayne State University. "I went to work straight out of college as a shift manager for a Burger King in Detroit. I made $1.75 per hour," he says. Today, as president of operations for V&J Holding Companies in Milwaukee, he is responsible for 125 units, 6 brands, and 4,000 team members in 6 states (Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Minnesota, and Massachusetts)...

"How does eliminating the 'silos' of separate departments help integratea brand's recruitment, development, sales, and marketing cultures and tasks?"

Jamie Davis
Executive Director of BusinessDevelopment & PizzAmbassador
Donatos Pizza
Silos are good for one thing, and one thing only: holding stuff back.
I grew up in the Midwest, so silos were a familiar site to me as a child. These huge concrete structures held enormous quantities of grain to be shipped off to other parts of the country, and they never moved. Ever. Of course, the silos were doing exactly what they were supposed to: hold stuff back and not move.

In the dynamic world of franchising, silos have no place. Franchises are complex organizations made up of independent franchisees supported by a corporate structure of marketing, operations, real estate and construction, and business development teams...

Managers are often task-oriented, and not necessarily focused on their employees. Leaders on the other hand are people-oriented; they work through and motivate their employees, utilizing their resources to perform assigned tasks in the most productive and profitable way possible.
Many managers confuse management with leadership, and feel they are automatically leaders because they occupy a position of higher responsibility. While this assumption is often true, many fail to display active leadership qualities. The roles leaders fulfill are different than those of managers, although sound management practices are complementary to effective leadership.
While some individuals are natural leaders, most managers must evolve into leaders both by investing time and effort in developing their abilities and by adapting their management roles to a more flexible, effective leadership style...

A franchise is not an ordinary business asset. You don't really "own" a franchise outright as you do a traditional business. What you own is a right or license from the franchisor to operate the business under the franchisor's name for a period of time (the franchise term). More important, when retirement, disability, or death requires a sale of the franchise, you cannot change ownership unless you meet the franchisor's requirements.
This difference becomes even more complicated when it involves multi-unit franchisees, who may be area developers or subfranchisors and who may have more than one unit in two or more unaffiliated brands or sectors (think donut or burger franchisees who are also hotel and convenience store franchisees). Not only are there different franchise terms for each of the franchises, there may be different franchisor requirements in the franchise and area development agreements controlling transfer upon retirement, disability, or death of the managing member or members of the multi-unit franchisee...

If you're not using social media as part of your recruiting process you should be.
Social media is becoming a more popular tool for job seekers, but few are seeking out restaurants directly on sites like Facebook to identify opportunities, according to a new survey on job seekers' social media habits from Snagajob, the hourly employment network for job seekers and employers.
Researchers surveyed 5,958 respondents and found nearly half of them use social networking sites in their job search (46 percent), and of those, 39 percent admitted searching for a job is their primary activity when online. But how they're using social media to find jobs might be a surprise.
While 42 percent have visited a social media job site page, like Snagajob, only 18 percent visited a restaurant's page...

You might assume that Jo McCabe has a background in home repairs. The co-owner of Mr. Handyman and the system's 2010 Franchisee of the Year, serves the Prince William and southern Fairfax counties in Virginia. But it's her background in the military that has helped her succeed in franchising.
McCabe attended the U.S. Naval Academy and received a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and then furthered her education with an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University. She worked as an aircraft maintenance officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Reserves. McCabe spent eight years in physical security, overseeing the Navy's northeast region and eventually managing 1,500 people.
She graduated from the Naval Academy in 1991 and served until 1996, then joined the Reserves...

Part 1 of this series addressed how to improve attendance at franchisee conventions. Part 2 discussed how to maximize the benefits to your franchisees. This final article explores strategies for taking the momentum generated at your convention into your franchisee operations and using it as a recruiting tool for your next convention. As with the first two parts, we drew on the results of an online survey conducted by Speak!, Ingage Consulting, and Franchise Business Review, which drew responses from nearly 200 franchisors.

Hosting a top-quality, exciting conference can do many things for your organization. For starters, it inspires your current franchisees, sparking and renewing enthusiasm for the business and for the relationship between the franchisees and franchisor...