Franchise Articles

Stories are the basis of human communication and decision-making. We use stories to relate to one another and make sense of the world around us. At the root of the massive changes to Google's search algorithms in the past three years has been a push to help people find the stories they are searching for when they type in a search query.

When prospects begin to do online research, they type in questions or key phrases to get at the stories that help them understand the franchise brand and how the model works. They want to understand the history of the company, how the brand came to be, where the brand is going and who is leading the charge. They want to hear stories about who the customer is, and why customers choose this brand...

Everyone knows the names of the most popular business books and the gurus who wrote them: Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Ken Blanchard, Jim Collins... you know the list. Now someone's created a list of books from off the beaten path. His name is Gregory Ciotti, and the list appeared in his blog on Help Scout, where he works. He also has a site called Sparring Mind, where you can check out some of his other posts.

Writes Ciotti: "The problem is that many business books are just plain awful; bloated to meet book length quotas, overly self-promotional, or a regurgitation of common sense, many are disappointments." Ever had that feeling? You're not alone.

So if you're looking for an edge in business (and who isn't?), perhaps you'll find something in the list, which Ciotti calls "25 Unconventional Business Books that You Won't See on Most Bookshelves (But Should)...

Objective: Qualify the prospect, build rapport, and establish the process
Length of conversation: 45 to 60 minutes

Now's the time to start pre-closing your prospect. As franchise pros stress, "The best close starts with the opening!" This is the most opportune time to set expectations and take control through leadership. Use this process to "establish the ground rules" and you will identify better candidates, build more credibility and confidence, and increase closing success.

1. Define your role in the process."My role is to educate you about our franchise, and to explore this opportunity with you to see if we're the right fit for each other. This is a franchise partnership, and we're interested in candidates who can be successful, satisfied owners...

If you ask retired NFL defensive tackle Don Davey to list the qualities needed to succeed in the NFL or in franchising, his list is the same: competitiveness, tenacity, discipline, coachability, and focus.
Those same qualities worked well for him in the NFL, where he played defensive tackle for 10 years, starting with the Green Bay Packers and then moving to the Jacksonville Jaguars, where he led the young team to a berth in the AFC Championship Game in just its second year of existence.
The same qualities he displayed in the NFL have contributed to his success today as the operator of Firehouse Subs restaurants in Florida and as the brand's area developer for Wisconsin. And that success has not gone unnoticed: the IFA named Davey its 2013 Franchisee of the Year...

"How do you set standards and measure performance in your brand's sales and development department?"

Taylor Wiederhorn
VP, Franchise Marketing & Development
FatburgerFatburger sets development standards based on a variety of different types of target markets and development standards designed specifically for those markets. In domestic markets where Fatburger already has a footprint, the criteria are based on a calculation of factors including the existing number of units and how much room there is in that arena for new restaurants to develop.

In existing domestic markets, Fatburger allows single-store and multi-unit operators to develop new units after determining that market's ability to handle additional units...

Three "players" you need on your business' offensive line

Peyton Manning just completed his most productive season ever as a pro. If anyone is surprised by that, they shouldn't be. According to ESPN, what many fail to realize is that statistically the Denver Broncos have the number one offensive line in football. The fact that Manning was rarely sacked last year and was sacked less than anyone else in the league contributed greatly to his banner year. If you're a business owner who wants Super Bowl-level success for your business, says Sean Castrina, you should put together an offensive line that can provide your business the same level of protection.
"Offensive linemen are paid to protect their quarterback," says Castrina, author of 8 Unbreakable Rules for Business Start-Up Success...

It’s a give and get strategy that can reap great rewards

Because most of us dread being called out for mistakes or weaknesses, leaders who hope to give honest feedback run the risk of angering employees and decreasing their productivity if it isn’t delivered correctly. This explains research findings revealing a negative relationship between feedback and employee engagement—it’s often given ineffectively. In one study, researchers analyzed more than six hundred studies of performance evaluations.* Their results were astonishing. In 30 percent of cases, performance reviews made performance worse. I’ll pause for a moment so you can read that again. The authors suggest that as feedback feels more and more personal (and less about behaviors or tasks), it becomes less and less helpful in driving improvement...

Every company makes mistakes that could make them lose customers. I don't care what business you are in, something will go wrong.

Smart companies know how to recover a customer and turn them into a loyal customer for life. However, fewer than 2 percent of companies use service recovery techniques. That's really bad. All companies make mistakes. All companies have things go wrong. Many companies, and most employees, run for cover instead of solving the problem. And thanks to social media, the problems are only getting worse. If customers aren't happy, they'll post the problem on Twitter and Facebook. They'll do it fast. Then you'll have a massive public relations problem that will take time, effort, and money to repair.

Companies spend a fortune on marketing...

Have you ever wanted to slap an exceptionally rude customer silly? That won't help as much as a solution a café owner in Nice, France has been making headlines with worldwide: charging polite customers less and rude customers more - five times more, in fact, for a "un café."

News outlets around the world, from the BBC to NPR, had a field day reporting on this in December - with few missing out on the irony of this occurring in a country famous for its rudeness to foreign visitors. If you live in France, apparently different rules apply.

So if you missed the story, here are some snippets from news reports that made the global rounds. Maybe this will even inspire a few good ideas among the more creative CMOs and branding experts who have to deal with (horrors!) rude customers...

We're all familiar with the classics in the world of business books: Ken Blanchard, Jim Collins, Stephen Covey, Peter Drucker... you know the names. Well, someone's put together a list of books from off the beaten path. His name is Gregory Ciotti, and the list appeared in his blog on Help Scout, where he works. He also has a site called Sparring Mind, where you can check out some of his other posts.

Writes Ciotti: "The problem is that many business books are just plain awful; bloated to meet book length quotas, overly self-promotional, or a regurgitation of common sense, many are disappointments." Ever had that feeling? You're not alone.

If you're looking for that edge in business (and who isn't?), perhaps you'll find something in the list, which Ciotti calls "25 Unconventional Business Books that You Won't See on Most Bookshelves (But Should)...

Instagram: 11 Likes or You'll Never See Me Again!
When an Instagram photo earns 11 likes, instead of showing a list of the handles of the people who have liked it, Instagram shows the number of likes. This is widely considered to be a mark of social validation, and some users will remove photos that fail to reach the all-important 11 mark, says Ian Chee, chief strategy officer at digital agency MRY, in a blog on the website ClickZ. He wrote: "In a study MRY conducted on Millennials' technology behavior, one young woman noted passionately the need to reach this number. 'If I don't hit 11 likes, I take down the post after a day - it's just too embarrassing to leave up there. Nobody likes it.' The embarrassment of not being validated trumps the need to share the image...

Not all entrepreneurs have the drive, initiative, and persistence to make it to the top. It takes a savvy operator who can evaluate risk and is not afraid to take it. It also means choosing great brands, assembling a talented team, and attracting raving fan customers to make it all work. Only a handful of operators can pull it off. We found six who did.
For our annual Mega 99 edition, we search out operators with unique stories who have achieved “mega” status. Each has a personal tale to tell, full of hopes and dreams, wins and losses, painful setbacks and triumphant successes. They are textbook examples of all that is good in the world of franchising.

Don Daveyspent a decade in the NFL as a defensive tackle before turning to franchising as a second career...

And Does Anybody Else Know About It?
Keith Gerson has spent more than 35 years in franchising in many different sales, development, and leadership positions. Now at FranConnect as president of global operations, he has agreed to combine his personal experience with FranConnect's franchising database to write about franchisor/franchisee relations, growth, culture, technology, and more in an ongoing column.

As we approach the new year, many of us are finalizing our strategic plans and budgets. We've spent countless hours ensuring that every ounce of discipline, creativity, and resources has gone into the effort. Yet, despite an ever-improving economy, too many CEOs will not have achieved the top-line revenue growth they budgeted for 2013...

San Jose, CA, February 6th, 2014: Franchise Update Media and MFV Expositions are joining forces this June to produce the first-ever Regional Multi-Unit Franchisee Summit, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. This one-day event is designed to be a condensed, more localized version of Franchise Update Media's Multi-Unit Franchising Conference in Las Vegas, which has quickly developed into a must-attend event in the franchising industry.

This regional summit will provide a more workshop-oriented environment for multi-unit franchisees in the eastern region. According Therese Thilgen, co-founder and CEO of Franchise Update Media, "we are excited to collaborate with MFV Expositions and introduce the Eastern Regional Multi-Unit Franchisee Summit...

Cancer was a wakeup call for Charles Loflin. He was a successful businessman in 2009 going from one accomplishment to the next. Then his wife discovered she had cancer and it quickly brought life into perspective.
"That was a real sobering wake-up call for me," says the 45-year-old multi-unit franchisee today, who quickly realized there was more to life than operating a successful business.
Together the Loflins faced the cancer, beat it, and his wife is now a cancer-free survivor. But that wasn't the only outcome of this life-changing event. Loflin had just opened two very successful Einstein Bros. stores and had five more to go in his agreement. He sold those stores back to the company, refocused exclusively on Wingstop, and began spending more time and energy enjoying his wife and two children...

When you drive up to Disneyland the message is clear: "The Happiest Place On Earth."
That not only announces their intention, it also defines their performance standards. If what you are doing as a Disney employee (correction: "Cast Member") doesn't produce happiness, then you need to reconsider how you are doing it. They hire people who will keep the place happy, manage to the measures that have been shown to produce happiness, and discharge people who do not fit their culture. Consequently, they are the happiest place on earth.
FedEx tells us up front that we should choose them when "it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight." So timely delivery is built into their policy manual, their training, their hiring practices, and the metrics they track each hour of each day...

Online reviews, smartphones, and social media are not passing fads. Can they be useful to your franchise recruiting and development efforts? Or are these things just distractions from the true work of sales and recruiting, and best left to the marketing department?

We believe that effective management of your online presence, including social media, is a critical component of your franchise development strategy. Why? Because there is no better way to illustrate that your organization knows how to get found and manage customers at the local level, where it really counts.

Gathering customer insight has traditionally been a marketing function, but your franchise development team cannot afford to be out of the loop in regard to socially driven customer intelligence...

The face of America's franchise owners is changing. In the traditional franchise model, the franchisee purchases a brand and follows an operator's manual. They stick to the proven methods of success - regardless of their local market or individual background.

While this model works for many, an increasing number of entrepreneurs are seeking a more individualized approach. Today's franchisees not only want to run a business with the backing of an established franchisor, they also value the prospect of investment and expansion, the ability to capitalize on a brand with their own business savvy. Instead of entering the franchising business with the intention of owning a small shop, today's franchisees are interested in managing a growing and expanding business...

If the first step in bringing your franchise overseas is to determine which international market is best for your brand, the second step is to decide what kind of deal you want to sign.

While there are many different kinds of agreements a company can sign, the two most common models are the master franchise agreement and the area developer agreement. Either agreement can be multi-country, single country, or regional; and in either case, a brand from outside the target country grants rights in the target county. In return, the franchisor receives a master franchise fee and royalties and/or the rights to supply product to the franchisee. While these two models share similarities, it is important to understand the differences.

Master franchise agreement
A master franchise agreement includes the franchisee's right to sub-franchise...

Objective: Qualify the prospect, build rapport, and establish the process
Length of conversation: 45 to 60 minutes

This meeting with your prospective candidate is the most important step in the recruitment process. It's your first real "date," the one that determines whether you two have what it takes for a serious relationship. Your prospect certainly is interested in your franchise. They responded to your franchise offer; were previously interviewed by you or your qualifier; reviewed your initial franchise package and website; and submitted their RFC, providing their personal information, work history, and financial statement.

This 30- to 45-minute session presents the opportunity for you to speak more openly with these motivated respondents...