Franchise Articles

Companies can make more money when they empower employees to make decisions that create over-happy customers, says John Tschohl, president of Service Quality Institute.
"Employee empowerment is defined as allowing employees to make fast decisions - on the spot - in favor of the customer. Empowerment is the single most difficult skill to get employees to utilize. That's a problem for businesses and government because if you don't have empowered employees, you will never be a service leader," says Tschohl, who is the author of Empowerment: A Way of Life.
"It is critically important for businesses to give employees the power to make decisions on the spot because one policy can't cover everything. There are too many weird things that happen every day...

Acquisio.com asked 14 digital marketing experts to share their predictions for the coming year. You can read their full responses online in a report called "14 on '14." As the introduction notes:

"With every passing year, digital marketers find themselves 1) armed with more tools to reach their target markets than ever before and 2) with more channels to try to manage all at once while attempting to reach those target audiences. ... If there is one common thread in the responses we got from our industry experts for this document, it is that while the means by which advertisers can reach people have expanded, the challenges inherent in making use of each of the channels available to marketers is expanding exponentially."

Below are some excerpts from the experts...

A McKinsey Quarterly Report shows that positive word of mouth has more than twice the impact of traditional advertising. For example, research by McKinsey showed that just one (free) episode of positive word of mouth can generate $200 in additional sales at a restaurant. It also turns out that personal recommendation is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions - and that its influence is greatest when consumers are buying a product for the first time.

There are two reasons word of mouth is so much more powerful than paid advertising. The first is trust. We tend to believe recommendations from people we know. We trust friends, acquaintances, and colleagues not just because we know them, but because they have no financial incentive or ulterior motive to try to influence us...

One of Charles Haney's favorite things about his new Burger 21 restaurant in Voorhees, N.J., is a wall sign that he believes lists all the best ways to succeed. One, he says, defines who he is: "B-different."
"When I was thinking about franchising, I'd looked at several systems, but when I went into a Melting Pot restaurant in California, everything--the food and non-food features--felt right. It was different from anything else out there. It spoke to me," he says. "When I went down to see the franchisor in Florida, that felt right too, because we shared the same passion and enthusiasm for the brand."
In 2007, Haney, a Boston native who sold his RainSoft water treatment company in Rhode Island after 10 years, opened a Melting Pot fondue restaurant in Atlantic City--and, along with his wife Wendy and their children, moved to New Jersey, her home state...

Each year, Franchising.com likes to take a look back at the articles and news that highlighted the franchise industry. Below you will find a list of the 10 most read articles and news stories that ran across our network in 2013.

Top 10 Articles of 2013

For U.S. franchisors, the domestic market can be highly competitive. From small businesses to large corporations, U.S. companies are turning their attention to markets abroad and the opportunity for growth overseas. International expansion is a natural next step for any growing business, but it is a move that must be carefully considered and expertly planned. The first thing any company must do when planning for international expansion is to determine what that growth will require and decipher which overseas market is the best initial target for their brand.

International expansion is a very smart business move for most companies: there often is less competition abroad; it provides an opportunity to develop in major markets internationally instead of looking at secondary markets in the U...

Talk about starting a business during the worst of times. Jason Duffy knows just what that's like.
After all, as he says, "That's all I've known as a franchisee, since I opened my first Dunkin' Donuts store in Phoenix on Aug. 15, 2008 during the worst economic times in 50 or 60 years." But the 38-year-old made it through and is still going strong.
Having survived his baptism by fire and come out ahead, Duffy, recently named one of the "40 Under 40" to watch by the Phoenix Business Journal, now has 51 Dunkin' Donuts stores in four western states, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and California.
His path to franchising began with a fateful meeting nearly 20 years ago with Jon Luther, who would later become president, CEO, and chair of Dunkin' Donuts...

Despite all its advantages, technology has made it harder to capture consumers' attention and easier for them to bypass advertising messages. Television viewers use DVRs and TiVo to fast-forward through commercials, while paid services like On Demand and XM/Sirius satellite radio eliminate commercials altogether. So how can a company effectively market its business in this modern media world? The answer for many companies is social media, and for many, it's pairing social media with contests and sweepstakes.

The possibilities are endless and run the gamut from traditional random sweepstakes drawings to popularity contests. A system of doggy day care centers and boutiques might, for example, devise a Facebook promotion that allows people to submit pictures of their dogs...

Need For Speed: Customer Service Must Be Delivered Quickly

By John Tschohl

Among the many tools and tactics companies can use to improve the customer experience, speed is the most overlooked. That's unfortunate because a major factor in creating a positive customer experience is speed. There are three major obstacles to improving the customer experience through speed:

The foundation of your successful selling program starts with your sales process. It's the anchor to embracing, guiding, and closing quality candidates who will help you build your system. It's the tightly honed script that ensures successful production from initial contact to closing. It's the Broadway hit performance that every night leads audiences from opening curtain to standing ovations; the World Series champions who mastered the execution of their game plan. Franchise development is no different: follow the plan, the plan works. This is the playbook to success for top-performing recruitment programs.

Every sales process must be refined to work most effectively for each franchisor's concept, franchise program, and franchise candidates...

Best-selling business author and trainer Zig Ziglar once said, "People don't buy drills, they buy holes." He meant that people often make decisions with their end result in mind. Think about any big decision you've made -- there's almost always a deeper purpose lurking in the background. You send your kid to college because you want them to have a happy and prosperous life. You buy a home so you can foster a healthy and fulfilling family life.

When it comes to buying a franchise, which is almost always an intense, emotionally charged decision, people go even further than buying the "holes." They're buying a personal story about how the franchise adds value or solves a problem that is worthy of the risk. The narrative candidates tell themselves about what's possible influences their entire decision-making process...

Check your business for these 20 danger signals!
To most financial advisors, convincing their clients of the absolute necessity of maintaining a sound financial system and cash controls—and the need to consistently review, evaluate, and plan—is about as easy as selling first aid. Everyone knows it’s there, but we can always “do it later.” Besides, “It won’t happen to me.” Or, “So what? I don’t have any control over all that stuff.”
You’re right, you don’t. However, what does this mean for individual businesses? The loud and clear message here is “manage better.” When there’s less room for error, you must do a better job.
As business owners, we have faced the ups and downs of economic cycles—and probably always will...

Experts share tips and warnings for investors

IRAs and annuities are growing in popularity as retirement investment options, according to recent surveys, but three financial experts warn they can have serious disadvantages.
"Last year, four out of 10 U.S. households had IRA accounts-that's up from 17 percent two decades ago," says CPA Jim Kohles, chairman of RINA accountancy corporation, (www.rina.com), citing an ICI Research survey. "But they can be bad for beneficiaries if you have a very large account."
Investment in annuities, touted as offering a potential guaranteed income stream, also continue to grow with sales up 10 percent in the second quarter of this year.
"Annuities have several dark sides, both during your lifetime and for your beneficiaries," says wealth management advisor Haitham "Hutch" Ashoo, CEO of Pillar Wealth Management, (www...

Two retired vets to bring Interim HealthCare to Salt Lake City

Two former Air Force vets will soon be taking flight by opening an Interim HealthCare in Salt Lake City. Michael Hawkins and Michael Eliason are the recipients of the waived franchise fee that Interim HealthCare announced in 2013 as a special incentive and support for military personnel. The two plan to begin offering personal care and support services next month and expand to skilled nursing care within the first year.
"When we announced the waived franchise fee for a qualifying military veteran in May, we couldn't have hoped to find a team as well matched to our core values as Michael and Eli," says Kathleen Gilmartin, president and CEO of Interim HealthCare...

In 2009, Charles Loflin's life was in high gear and he was racking up one success after another. Then his wife got cancer.
"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.
"I'm a very driven person...

The findings from the 2014 Annual Franchise Development Report (AFDR) were unveiled this October at the 15th annual Franchise Leadership & Development Conference in Atlanta. In keeping with past years, Steve Olson, president of Franchise Update Media Group, presented the findings during the first general session of the conference. This year he was joined by Conference Chair Tom Wood, president of Floor Coverings International, and Greg Vojnovich, chief development officer at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen for a discussion of the results.
This year's AFDR is based on responses from 101 franchisors representing 34,509 units (31,047 franchised and 3,462 company-owned). The participants were franchisors who pre-registered for the conference and completed an in-depth survey online in advance...

A McKinsey Quarterly Report shows that positive word of mouth has more than twice the impact of traditional advertising. For example, research by McKinsey showed that just one (free) episode of positive word of mouth can generate $200 in additional sales at a restaurant. It also turns out that personal recommendation is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions--and that its influence is greatest when consumers are buying a product for the first time.
There are two reasons word of mouth is so much more powerful than paid advertising. The first is trust. We tend to believe recommendations from people we know. We trust friends, acquaintances, and colleagues not just because we know them, but because they have no financial incentive or ulterior motive to try to influence us...

Thirty Golden Corral restaurants, $155 million in sales annually, and providing jobs for more than 3,000 people would most certainly qualify as a success story for Eric Holm.
But when you ask the Winter Park, Fla., resident about his life and career, he's just as likely to tell you about his two bankruptcies, or the time his independent restaurant fell into a sinkhole, as he is to tell you that he is the most awarded franchisee in Golden Corral history.
"I've been broke two times in my life and I didn't enjoy either one of them," he says. "But I didn't hang out and have a pity party. I got out and went to work and tried different things to be successful. I guess you could say I actually 'failed forward.'"
So, Holm, who has been Golden Corral's Franchisee of the Year eight times and the highest-volume operator in the system for the past 15 years, urges restaurateurs and would-be franchisees to understand that failure is a learning tool...

For NFL Quarterback David Garrard, there's no such thing as "retirement." His short break from the NY Jets, starting in May and ending in October, proves that he's not good at sitting back and doing nothing. Along with his football training, he has been working with business advisors to find his next big off-the-field endeavor."But it had to be the right opportunity," says the 35-year-old Garrard, best known for his 2007-2010 stint as starting quarterback with the Jacksonville Jaguars, who drafted him as a fourth round pick in 2002 directly following his graduation from East Carolina University.
That ideal opportunity turned out to be Retro Fitness, a rapidly growing U.S. fitness chain known for providing its members with all the valuable amenities of a high-end gym, minus the hefty price tag...