Automotive Feature Articles

Automotive Feature Articles

Franchise Sector Showcase

Informative Automotive franchise articles to support business buyers, franchisees, and franchisors.

Each year we work with FRANdata to compile a list of the country’s largest multi-unit franchisee organizations.
  • Multi-Unit Franchisee
  • 3,500 Reads 1,021 Shares
That's a great question! In fact, none of us can get better without knowing how we are doing in key performance areas.
  • Jack Mackey
  • 6,758 Reads 1 Shares
It is essential for brands, especially franchise brands, to have a reputation management strategy for the Internet. It has always been the role of the franchisor to promote and protect the brand. In the Internet age there are new challenges online that must be addressed appropriately. In the old days, you put up a website and you directed people to go there and learn about you. You probably had a way for them to send you an email and maybe you had a coupon to print or detailed request form to fill out. Those days are gone. People no longer want to see what you are saying about yourself on your website. Web 2.0 and social media have changed all that. The Internet is now all about individual content and peer-to-peer interaction. People are no longer reading your website, they are reading what other people are saying about you everywhere else. There are conversations about your brand taking place online--conversations you may or may not know about--and you need a strategy to deal with them.
  • Franchise Update
  • 5,559 Reads 1,021 Shares
Multi-brand franchising allows multi-unit operators to balance risk and ride out the uncertainties of the marketplace in many ways...
  • Multi-Unit Franchisee
  • 5,600 Reads
Truly great franchise sales and development teams are hard to find... and can be even harder to create. For franchise sales executives, attracting the right mix of people, passion, and experience, along with creating a positive culture and providing the right mix of recognition and reward, it's a delicate balance. Achieving that balance means the difference between a marginal brand and a great one
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 4,681 Reads 68 Shares
Refugees from corporate America seeking capital to open a franchise business are tapping into their retirement plans to fund their fledgling businesses. So are multi-unit franchisees seeking to expand.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 8,951 Reads 1,023 Shares
For more than a decade now, Franchise Update has deployed teams of mystery shoppers to evaluate the performance of sales teams, specifically their responses to phone and online queries from qualified prospects. The companies surveyed each year are franchisors registered to attend the annual Leadership & Development Conference who ask to be mystery shopped. This year, our telephone mystery shoppers phoned 155 franchisors and submitted forms on 132 recruitment websites; and a separate team evaluated the websites themselves.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 5,868 Reads
In my book, Grow to Greatness: How to build a world-class franchise system faster, I present the Six Steps to Selling Success. Step Five is Discovery Day.
  • Steve Olson
  • 4,030 Reads 45 Shares
Multi-brand franchising allows multi-unit operators to balance risk and ride out the uncertainties of the marketplace in many ways
  • Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine
  • 3,573 Reads 6 Shares
Brian Klaubert spent 19 years as an engineer before entering the franchising world. Not surprisingly, he had very little financial background for running a business. That's where his franchisor, Christian Brothers Automotive, stepped in.
  • Multi-Unit Franchisee
  • 3,266 Reads 29 Shares
Business buyers evaluating a prospective purchase want answers to key opportunity factors. If you don't provide these answers, their relatives, CPA, attorney, or armchair advisors will! During my career I've had the enviable position of gaining insight into these major decision-making criteria, which could make or break the attractiveness of a franchisor's concept with discerning buyers. I've listened to, learned from, and consulted with hundreds of print and Internet advertisers seeking ways to accelerate their response rates. This included providing in-house creative services to increase lead generation performance. What we discovered were the critical factors that attract prospective franchisees--whether you're a $50,000 cleaning franchise or a $1 million restaurant concept.
  • Steve Olson
  • 3,587 Reads
MassageLuXe
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The most fundamental business strategy calls for black numbers on the bottom line. In simplest terms, it's proof the business is generating more cash than it is spending. All too often, though, entrepreneurs get involved in businesses without employing a proper system to help them keep a watchful eye on what they're earning and what they're spending. Managing day-to-day operations can be so time-consuming that it leaves little room for financial analysis. Or perhaps key individuals lack a basic understanding of how to read and interpret financial statements. Combine these factors with the down economy, and you'll likely wind up with a troubled business.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 8,300 Reads 518 Shares
When discussing franchise development best practices at events such as the recent Franchise Update Leadership & Development Conference, you heard franchise professionals throw around terms such as "franchise sales," "franchise development," and "franchisee recruitment." If you were to examine their core philosophy on how to best expand a franchise network, you would find professionals seem to fall into two separate and distinct camps: Franchise Sales and Franchisee Recruitment. Both parties maintain their philosophies are right.
  • Joe Mathews
  • 12,730 Reads 1 Shares
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.
  • Steve Olson
  • 3,588 Reads 5 Shares
Anyone seriously considering the purchase of a franchise will ultimately have to decide if a "service" franchise or a "retail" franchise is a better fit. It's an important distinction in terms of both entry requirements and operational realities, and it's a decision that can determine your ultimate effectiveness as a franchise operator. First, a basic summary of some typical service franchise opportunities available today, here are just a few: trade and handyman (electricians, plumbers), lawn maintenance, landscape services, childcare, tutoring, education, business coaches accounting, bookkeeping real estate agents, travel agents, commercial, domestic cleaning, automotive-related services, computer-related services, and interior design/decorating.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 39,462 Reads 11 Shares
This article from 2008 could almost be written today. Learn how the more things change, the more they stay the same (except for Covid, of course).
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 5,299 Reads 14 Shares
Bernie Howard is betting his 401(k) that his new franchise business will set him up better over the long-term than his 23-year career in the automotive industry.
  • The Grand Rapids Press
  • 2,658 Reads
Unfortunately, many franchisors flounder in direct-response recruitment advertising. Typically, their development efforts focus on improving their sales and media sources, with minimal attention paid to increasing ad performance.
  • Steve Olson
  • 3,784 Reads 1 Shares
Bill Dalton owned eight Grease Monkey franchises in the Seattle metro area. Today he owns one--a five-month-old, state-of-the-art facility in his home of Montgomery, Texas.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 5,591 Reads 1,014 Shares
Conventional wisdom would say the best franchise operators are individuals with past business experience - or even better, previous franchising experience. But that may not be the case any longer. A youth movement is under way in the world of multiunit franchising.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 6,160 Reads 98 Shares
Since 1653, when Izaak Walton published The Compleat Angler, "compleat" has come to mean many things beyond what Walton described as "a Discourse on Fish and Fishing." The dictionary tells us it means classic or quintessential. But compleat also implies mastery far beyond the basics, conjuring up words like visionary, leader, even master.
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 4,148 Reads 7 Shares
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Franchising...it's not a business, but rather, a way of doing business. It's a unique, and usually highly effective, method of distribution for all kinds of products, goods, and services. It's also an industry that generates $1.5 trillion dollars in annual sales.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 3,432 Reads 25 Shares
If you're reading this, you already know that franchising is a different business model. That it involves paying the franchisor an initial franchise fee, as well as ongoing royalties and, often, paying into an advertising fund. And that you're willing to pay those costs for the privilege of using a recognized brand name and an operating system with a successful track record. Not to mention the initial and ongoing training and support the brand offers.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 17,943 Reads 10 Shares
The Home Depot is the big fish in retail hardware and home improvement centers. Founded by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, their first store, opened in Atlanta in June 1979. Today, Home Depot has more than 2,100 stores and 350,000 employees with annual revenues approaching $100 billion. When it comes to U.S. retailers, Home Depot's annual sales rank second only to those of Wal-Mart.
  • Franchising.com
  • 61,371 Reads 15 Shares
The Home Depot is the big fish in retail hardware and home improvement centers. Founded by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, their first store, opened in Atlanta in June 1979. Today, Home Depot has more than 2,100 stores and 350,000 employees with annual revenues approaching $100 billion. When it comes to U.S. retailers, Home Depot's annual sales rank second only to those of Wal-Mart.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 61,641 Reads 455 Shares
UPS Capital Business Credit, the financing arm of UPS, recently announced it is adding franchise finance capabilities to its portfolio of small business offering.
  • Joan Szabo
  • 3,776 Reads 15 Shares
They may not be the most visible, or even among the highest-paid executives in the company. But in the daily trenches of running a franchise system, chief operating officers, or COOs, are the go-to people for other executives, staff, and franchisees. Most come in early and stay late, taking only brief vacations and then doing so with cell phone in hand.
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 6,877 Reads 1 Shares
Barbara Moran had given up on the idea of ever heading up her father Dennis's company, Moran Industries. She'd wanted to be president, but was told that it wasn't in the cards because a woman in a male-dominated industry just wouldn't work for customers and franchisees.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 4,072 Reads 1 Shares
Let's face it. From a franchisee's perspective, the single most important piece of information to gather during the sales process is the likely return on investment. Any franchise salesperson will tell you that the most frequently asked questions by prospective franchisees during the sales process are: "How much can I make?" and "What do similar units earn?"
  • Lane Fisher and Rocco Fiorentino
  • 3,962 Reads 6 Shares
For many years--like the ancient bones of "Lucy" discovered by Donald Johanson in 1974 and long thought to be mankind's first ancestor--Albert Singer, who founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company in 1851, has been credited with being the first franchisor in the United States. The designation was likely given because his was the most recognized name of the early pioneers that people still remembered.
  • Michael Seid
  • 29,110 Reads 26 Shares
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