What if there were a web-based tool that could help you create and organize your restaurants' menu quickly and accurately--while also collecting important data and ensuring consistent brand delivery? There is, and companies including Applebee's, California Pizza Kitchen, O'Charley's, Max & Erma's, and Papa Murphy's are now using the technology to create, design and order printed copies of their menus. The tool, MenuNet, is from Trabon Companies, which provides web-to-print restaurant technology and printing solutions.

Franchisee validation can make or break the sale of your candidate. Pow! Just like that, a once-supercharged prospect can deflate to nothing in 24 hours, bailing out of your process almost instantly. Validation is the most influential stage in the selling process. What franchise owners say means far more than what a corporate sales person tells them. Franchise operators are doing it and living it, and it's their experiences that count foremost with cautious buyers.

On a recent monthly Webinar for the Franchise CEO Network, I was honored to interview Rhoda Olsen, president and COO of Great Clips, Inc. Quickly, the conversation turned to what it is like to lead more than 2,800 Great Clips franchisees, and the challenges that must be overcome to communicate effectively.

There's a saying I've heard in business and the franchise community for years: "Either your system is growing, or you are slowly going out of business and just don't know it yet." These days, everyone's singing the "Bad Economy Blues." Unfortunately, this sentiment can become contagious within franchise systems. So what can franchisors do to help their franchisees sustain and grow, and to maintain happy franchise systems in these difficult times? Or at least, what can franchisors do to circle the wagons and avoid franchisee attrition? Attrition is a franchisor's worst enemy as failed and/or closed units reduce royalty income, render some support staff obsolete, and wreak havoc with franchisee validation.

Tony Lutfi came to California when he was 16, a Palestinian-Jordanian immigrant looking for a better life. He dreamed of growing up, getting an education, and becoming a doctor. To earn some money, he took a job working the graveyard shift at a Jack in the Box. Then fate stepped in. "The manager had a heart attack, and they promoted me. I helped the management team in the summer after I graduated from high school," says Lutfi. "It became my passion. I never went back to school, and I was promoted at Jack in the Box."

To stand out among the 3,000 franchise opportunities in today's uncertain economy, aggressive concepts are courting prospects with special incentive and stimulus packages--such as Papa John's, Cafe2U, Budget Blinds, Kitchen TuneUp, Red Mango, and Discover Rental Purchase.

"Are you using social networking (MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, etc.) to recruit new franchisees?"

You've done your research, you've assessed your own strengths and weaknesses, you've thoroughly evaluated the franchise companies that were a potential match for you, you've got your financing lined up, you've even jumped through a few hoops along the way, now comes the moment of decision. When it's time to commit and move forward with a franchise, you will be required to officially sign on. It's a big day and is often - but not always - marked by a Discovery Day held by the franchisor. Discovery Days are often meant to serve as final meetings that are typically held at the franchisor's headquarters or other corporate facility. Often, the franchisor will cover some or all of the costs of the incoming franchisee. After all, at this point, you've both been in regular contact and things look pretty serious. These events are usually fun, informal, and characterized by high energy and positive words. It's a final chance to talk one-on-one and, if both sides are in agreement, sign on with the franchise. But keep in mind that you are not obligated to "come aboard" at this time, and the franchisor also reserves the right to not extend an invitation at the end of the day. As a matter of fact, you may even consider attending two or three different Discovery Days to help you make your final determination of a franchise concept. That being said, here are some things you should know and do to prepare for attending a Discovery Day signing.

Craig Horn is such a perfectionist that he'll probably never give himself a grade of "A" for performance as president and CFO of Fresno, Calif.-based JEM Management Corp. After almost a year-and-a-half at the helm of JEM, which owns 22 Wendy's and 15 KFCs, he gives himself a "B."

I made a presentation to a national law firm's franchise practice group a few years ago with the title, "You Won't Believe What You Can Learn From a UFOC." The presentation was made to people who were responsible for putting UFOCs (now FDDs) together. They were surprised to learn all the things that could be analyzed and extracted from the documents they prepared.

Starting up a new company is risky business, even in a healthy economy. Despite the troubles and fears that have plagued the economy and business world in the past year, many new franchise concepts have hung out shingles, and others that were just barely off the ground are thriving today.

Franchise Update Media Group (FUMG), the leading industry resource for franchise development, today announced that the ninth annual Multi-Unit Franchising Conference will be held March 24-26, 2010 at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas. Attendance for 2010 is expected to be even higher than the record-breaking 2009 conference, which hosted 525 attendees, 78 exhibitors and 80 sponsors, a 54% increase over 2008.

Thomas "Tab" Broome got an early start in the franchise business, going to work for a restaurant group in Raleigh, N.C., about 30 years ago. At the time, the company ran a string of Darryl's restaurants (which looked a lot like Applebee's, only with a little more variety and flair), a group of 11 Pizza Inns, and The Angus Barn steakhouses. General Mills swooped in and bought the pizza places and family restaurant business, and Broome got a chance to work for a large restaurant corporation.

Welcome to the ever-changing world of franchising! Just when we all think we have things figured out, a new challenge arises. The economy! As I recall, we were all chugging along running our ad campaigns, generating leads, and (hopefully) converting some to qualified candidates. Guess what? Pipeline paralysis! Not that lead volume has fallen--on the contrary, lead flow is rising, right about in lockstep with the unemployment rate as more people are compelled to explore business and franchise ownership options. Yet as lead volume has increased since the clock struck 1/1/09, we are now faced with a new challenge: how to effectively position our business in a troubled economy and actually get qualified candidates financed and into business.

Business owners often get trapped because they don't heed the messages their business sends and they don't pay attention to basic principles. The following checklist represents a clear set of danger signals - situations and issues - that have a clear and negative effect on cash flow.Take a few minutes under the harsh, cold light of reality to ask yourself how many of the following danger signals exist in your business and then evaluate carefully their implications:

Craig had a sales organization which he had built but had just recently suffered a serious setback when he came to us to talk about his Transition Growth Planning. He had helped develop three key employees whom he felt were primed and ready to eventually take over and purchase the business from him. Unfortunately, he had not yet communicated his vision for these employees to the employees themselves. Shortly before he met with us, these three key employees decided that their best future would be to develop a new business on their own. So they left Craig and took their book of business with them. Much of this business had been initially developed by Craig, who had been transitioning his contacts over to these three individuals.

Gaining access to and securing capital is more important for franchisees today than ever. Every week we talk with multi-unit franchisees about how they are growing and the kind of financing it takes for them to achieve their goals. It's an important topic and sometimes we get some very candid responses.

Looking for a franchise opportunity in a "booming" industry? You might want to check out home health care for seniors. That baby boom blip that first appeared following World War II is now dipping into the golden years. As a result, the need for elderly care in America is on the rise and will remain in high demand for years to come.

We all tout the compelling benefits of the franchising model, praising its value as a blueprint for success and proven business system. So why don't the overwhelming majority of franchisors divulge any financial performance data to support this? Savvy companies that do show results gain greater credibility over their competitors.

Getting to know a little more about you as a prospect is one of the first things franchises are interested in. The initial franchise application process is a screening mechanism by which franchisors begin to determine your interest and qualifications. Today, it is common to find initial franchise application forms on franchisors' websites - but most will be happy to send you one as well. This is a good stepping off point for beginning the communication process. You should not only take this very seriously, but also expect to spend some time gathering the information and completing the application.

Let's look at some recent trends. The stock market: trending downward. Franchise system sales: flat or downward in well over the majority of cases. Sales of new franchises: definitely on the downturn, almost dormant. How depressing!

At some level, there's a growing realization that the current economic "decline" is not just a speed bump. The assumption that a return to the "status quo" is sure to come--that it's merely a matter of time--also appears to be quickly fading. The emerging conclusion: Things typically don't come this unhinged only to revert to what existed before.

Franchising is a great business model and with so many concepts and brands out there to choose from, research and due diligence are a big part of your assignment. Of course you'll receive a wealth of information from the franchisor detailing and outlining almost every facet of the system and operations, but there is one other area of research that you owe it to yourself to uncover (many franchises even require that you do this). Once you've narrowed your franchise brand choice, you'll want to talk to some existing - and even former - franchisees about what it's really like out there in the trenches every day running the business. This is part of your due diligence and it's imperatively important.

I'm amazed at the resiliency I see in the franchising industry. While so much of the business world is whining over the daily reports of the latest economic upheaval, I look around this industry and I see calmer, cooler heads prevailing. Take franchise recruitment and development, for example. This is no time to panic.

These are adverse times for franchise industry executives and operators. Everywhere they turn it seems they are faced with weakening markets. The "get big" strategy of the last decade, which was driven by low interest rates and growing markets, is collapsing under the pressure of shrinking consumer demand.

In the late 1990s, Jeff Reetz was a head coach at Pizza Hut, helping to inspire a group of regional coaches to winning records at dozens of restaurants in eight Southwestern markets. "I helped them make their operations as successful as possible," recalls Reetz. However, like many working in a corporate environment, he dreamed of the day when he could manage his own business.

Life has not been easy--personally or professionally--for Chris Haque (pronounced Hawk), who was born in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. He was only 15 when his sister came to the U.S. for medical treatment for leukemia. Thanks to his gift of his bone marrow donation, she lived three more years before the disease took her.

Everybody loves lists. Whether it's a year-end "best of" list in the entertainment world or a list of business-performance rankings, we see them everywhere. Lists give us insight and a benchmark for all kinds of comparisons. Readers continue to tell us that the lists found in the pages of Multi-Unit Franchisee magazine each issue are informative--and sometimes provocative--and provide a perspective that often allows for self-assessment and operational adjustments.

In a new column starting next month, Brian Schnell, co-chair of Faegre & Benson's Franchise Practice, will alert readers to any state regulatory developments affecting franchisors. For example, he will identify any state-specific nuances franchisors may encounter from state regulators during the franchise registration process. He also will provide best practice tips to help franchisors comply with individual state registration and disclosure requirements.

In these uncertain economic times, emerging franchise companies are finding it difficult to fund their franchise expansion strategies. Traditionally, franchise companies fund their startup and expansion in one of two ways