2012 Mega 99

You search and screen and interview for the best employees. Days pass, sometimes weeks, as you narrow down your choices (and continue to operate understaffed).

In business, owners often become trapped because they don't heed the messages their business sends and don't pay attention to basic principles.

Tommy Haddock has added 10 Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits restaurants since we profiled him six years ago.

In business, a lot changes in three years, especially in a down economy. And while his business has taken a turn for the worse, Tom Barnett's values and commitments remain strong as ever.

The U.S. economy is on the rise. While the world economy will be fortunate to realize a 3 percent growth rate in 2012 (less than 2 percent and we'll see a global recession, something too close to call at the moment), most of the domestic indicators are signaling a positive outlook for next year.

This has always been the place, right? America, I mean, where anybody can start with nothing and turn it into something.

Is anybody else as fed up as I am with hearing about how bad things are? Let's get on with it already and start focusing on what we can do to survive--and thrive--in the new reality.

Each year we work with FRANdata to compile a list of the country’s largest multi-unit franchisee organizations.