The MUFC's Tree of Wisdom

With so much discussion about artificial intelligence and the need for businesses to be technology-forward, we sometimes forget about the tried-and-true methods for growing our businesses and ourselves. The Multi-Unit Franchising Conference has always been the proverbial “Tree of Wisdom” for many of my friends and me.
Once I had multiple brands and multiple locations under my belt, I felt like I had already picked most of the fruit of personal and professional development at my brands’ national conferences. Learning something new and impactful for my business was becoming more and more of a struggle as I matured with the brands.

During my first year of MUFC attendance 10 years ago, I realized that the MUFC was a bigger, more plentiful Tree of Wisdom from which I could pluck the fruit of knowledge and experience. The low-hanging fruit at this conference comes in the form of keynote speakers, breakout panels with the best operators and investors in franchising, and a Sponsor Networking Area  for scouting out new franchise brands and understanding which established brands are aggressively seeking out good operators. (I personally have added two brands directly from the Sponsor Networking Area of this conference.) 

After a few years of consuming all the low-hanging fruit you can collect at the MUFC, you mature and reach into the higher parts of the Tree of Wisdom. These pieces of fruit are the sweetest and most fulfilling on the tree. Around the third year of MUFC attendance, you start to form relationships with the faces you have seen from years past. Maybe you have seen someone speak on a panel. Maybe you both shared time in the same booth scouting out a new brand and comparing notes.

As you stretch for those pieces higher up on the tree, there are plenty of people who are happy to hand you the fruit that is just out of your grasp, or to show you the hidden stepladder in life to get to the same branch of the tree as them. At this level, you form friendships where you vacation together, go into business together, learn from each other, and celebrate together. The formation of lifelong friendships and partnerships is not uncommon at this level of the Tree of Wisdom at the MUFC.

Let this be your time to get back to building relationships and focusing on the abundance of fruit on every branch the tree has to offer at the 2024 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference, March 19–22, at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas!

Jesse Keyser

2024 MUFC Chair