Lead

Joseph Schumacher, CEO of Goddard Systems and its 410 locations, traces his franchising career back to 1977 at Maaco. Founded by his brother-in-law Tony Martino (recently inducted into the IFA's Hall of Fame), Maaco was a good fit for Schumacher, who was making a good living and enjoying the work. A few years into it, Schumacher noticed that certain legal ramifications could determine system and franchisee success or failure and made a career-changing decision: while still working at Maaco corporate, he began attending law school at night.
"My last few years at Maaco I was director of legal administration," says the 59-year-old. "It was a great role, and I enjoyed it so much that I left the brand to go into private law practice, where I provided outside counsel to Maaco and other franchise brands...

Julia Stewart
CEO, DineEquity
System revenue: $7.2 billion (Applebee's $4.2 billion, IHOP $2.7 billion, company units $292 million)
No. of units: 3,612 (2,010 Applebee's, 1,602 IHOPs)
Public or private: Public
Growth plans: Build on the iconic status of our brands through our culture, brand equity, and positioning, providing quality to our guests, and development. One of the tenets of our plan for continued growth is innovation--in our menu, guest experience, and our restaurants, domestically and abroad.
Year founded: IHOP 1958, Applebee's 1980 (Following the acquisition of Applebee's in November 2007, the name was changed to DineEquity, Inc., effective June 2, 2008.)
Began franchising: IHOP 1960, Applebee's 1985
Years with company: 15 years in the Applebee's and IHOP brands, the past 12 as CEO of IHOP/DineEquity
Years in franchising: 30-plus
Number of international locations: Applebee's, 150; IHOP, 51

Questions

How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?My very first experience in the restaurant industry was a job as a server at my local IHOP, which began a lifelong love affair with the restaurant industry...

Rich Wilson needed to earn money for his college education. The way he saw it, he had two choices. "I could either spend a summer crab fishing in Alaska or start my own business," recalls Wilson, president and CEO of CertaPro Painters for the past 4 years. "I decided to stay dry."

So in 1987 he became a franchisee of College Pro Painters, a painting company that targets business-minded students. It worked out: he made enough money to pay off his tuition bills and enjoyed running a business so much that, rather than following his plan to attend law school after graduation, he joined College Pro's corporate team, becoming a division vice president by 1992. He spent the next 5 years with the organization before a couple of career turns at Aamco and Maaco before settling in at CertaPro Painters in 2003...

Joseph Schumacher, CEO of Goddard Systems and its 410 locations, traces his franchising career back to 1977 at Maaco. Founded by his brother-in-law Tony Martino (recently inducted into the IFA’s Hall of Fame), Maaco was a good fit for Schumacher, who was making a good living and enjoying the work. A few years into it, Schumacher noticed that certain legal ramifications could determine system and franchisee success or failure, and he made a career-changing decision: while still working at Maaco corporate, he began attending law school at night.

“My last few years at Maaco I was director of legal administration,” says the 59-year-old. “It was a great role and I enjoyed it so much that I left the brand to go into private law practice, where I provided outside counsel to Maaco and other franchise brands...

Barbara Moran-Goodrich
CEO and President, Moran Family of Brands

System revenue: $60 million
No. of units: 138
Public or private: Private
Founded: 1990
Began franchising: 1990
Years with company: 23
Years in franchising: 23
International locations: 0

How has your life experience made you the leader you are today? I believe the saying, "You are the sum of all your experiences" is pretty accurate. I've experienced a lot of challenges throughout my life, both personal and professional, and those challenges have definitely helped guide me in leadership roles. As a young adult, I had a severe head injury that changed the direction of my life: I realized that you have to move on and not dwell on your situation...

Kat Cole,CEO, Cinnabon

Stats/Facts:
System revenue: Do not disclose
No. of units: 1,100
Public or private: Private
Growth plans: Continue multi-channel expansion--we just hit $1 billion in global product sales from 60,000 points of distribution and would like to hit $2 billion from 100,000 points in 5 years; grow to 2,000 units in 5 years
Founded: 1985
Began franchising: 1988
Years with company: 3-plus
Years in franchising: 15
International locations: 500-plus
Questions
How has your life experience made you the leader you are today? Having a strong single mother as a parent taught me confidence, grace, trust, and resilience. Traveling all over the world for business shaped my skills in flexibility, influence, and compassion...

How many direct reports do you have? Consider these four scenarios.

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...

Wan Kim is a quick study. After graduating from Boston University with a degree in international management, he began his MBA studies at the University of California-Irvine at the crest of the investment-heavy dot-com boom of the late '90s/early 2000s.
"I left school to go back to South Korea and chase the bubble," he says. "But I discovered there's no such thing as easy money." It was a career move that left him thinking hard about what kind of business was sustainable.
Kim says he knew people had to eat, and he liked what he saw in the franchise business model. But he wasn't interested in less healthy choices like burgers and pizza. "I had been a regular customer at Smoothie King when I was in college in America," he says. "I thought I could make the concept work here in Korea...

In the eyes of Catherine Monson, the most important role of a CEO is leading and inspiring. "It's critical for the leader to communicate a clear, compelling vision and align the different departments or teams with the company's priorities," says Monson, CEO of FastSigns. "I set the vision, goals, and standards and then work through my team to achieve them."
When Monson took over the 25-year-old brand in early 2009, she put this approach right to work. First on her agenda was clearing up a communication gap between corporate and franchisees. Some franchisees were unhappy with the lack of support they felt they were receiving from corporate, resulting in stalled brand growth.
Monson created a sales incentive program and instituted monthly company meetings for sales updates, program developments, company announcements, and praise for departments on their projects and efforts...

At Fresh To Order (f2o), guests experience a unique offering--flavors and service inspired by fine dining served at a fast casual pace--and at fast casual prices. We created both the concept and the category niche, which we call "fast-fine." Our eight locations across Georgia and Tennessee serve flavorful, fresh, and affordable favorites in 10 minutes for around $10 per person.
Diners have embraced the new offering, and our restaurants have experienced double-digit same store sales growth for the past three years--although, in 2000, when I began contemplating a restaurant concept that fused the speed and inherent benefits of fast casual with the flavors, ingredient quality, and service level of fine dining, f2o seemed like a "crazy idea...

TV Game Show Host Pat Sajak getsBehind New Loyalty Program Franchise Concept
Pat Sajak has been hosting TV's Wheel of Fortune for the last three decades but now he's playing host to a new franchise concept and the payoff could be huge.
Great American Deals is a new variation on the daily deal concept made popular by Groupon. But co-founder Sajak says it's unique because it builds a community of connections between local business owners, consumers, and the franchisee. The goal is ongoing customer loyalty and lasting relationships at the local level.
Franchisees don't need real estate or a lot of equipment with this home-based concept, start-up costs are low - as little as $49,500 - and there are no long hours managing a staff...

Last May Paul Brown made a bold move. He left behind his hotel management career to move into the food service arena, taking over as CEO of Arby's. But it's a move Brown was well prepared to make. He has extensive experience and a proven track record in leading global and franchise brands including Hilton Worldwide, Expedia, and InterContinental Hotels Group.
"What I have learned throughout by career in franchising is it is really a competition for capital," says the 46-year-old. "If a brand provides a great return on investment for franchisees, they will continue to invest and build with that brand." Brown says he loves the franchise business because it's a "relatively straightforward virtuous cycle." He sums it up like this, franchisees make a great return, franchisees invest and build more units, franchisor makes a great return, franchisor invests more in the brand, and begin again...

Meg Roberts says her professional career path changed course into the franchising business unexpectedly. The Michigan native always thought she would be in the advertising business, studied it in school, and went to work for one of the largest ad agencies, BBDO in Chicago, eventually working on major accounts such as Wrigley. But the high stress and long hours weren't conducive to a family and any life outside work. So she moved back to Michigan where she lived not far from Molly Maid headquarters and, as fate would have it, she even knew someone who worked there. One thing led to another and in 2007 she found herself as the director of marketing for the 30-year-old brand.
"One of the things that I came to realize very early on was that franchise marketing is much more complex than consumer retail marketing," she says...

Behavioral metrics is just a fancy way to say, "Measuring the people side of business."
If the concept is unfamiliar, it's because behavioral metrics rarely make it to a P&L. Sure, in most well-run organizations we measure the costs of turnover, employee engagement, and leadership development, but let's take it a step further. For example, think about measuring the difference between the personality profiles of high-performing franchisees and those unable to make the grade. Why are some capable of meeting or exceeding expectations, but others aren't?
By knowing the financial and behavioral gaps that exist between best and worst performers, franchisors can improve their selection of the right franchisee--and influence the performance of existing franchisees...