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

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
  • 6,203 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
  • 7,177 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
  • 5,160 Reads 3 Shares
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
  • 4,328 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
  • 20,740 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
  • 62,744 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
  • 63,014 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
  • 4,511 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
  • 8,071 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
  • 4,745 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
  • 4,774 Reads 6 Shares
Woof Gang Bakery
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Woof Gang Bakery
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Woof Gang Bakery
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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
  • 32,689 Reads 26 Shares
What's the outlook for franchise finance in 2006? [i]Area Developer[/i] asked several industry veterans for their take on who's financing area developers and multi-unit operators today.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 4,772 Reads 7 Shares
Lending experts say if you haven't provided financing information on non-bank lenders to prospective franchisees, you may be missing an important opportunity. There are a number of advantages to using non-bank lenders for franchise development, and franchisees who need financing help will appreciate the information you provide.
  • Joan Szabo
  • 7,802 Reads 1,014 Shares
Quick lube shops may seem to be on every corner of most major American cities, but that's not true overseas in places like China and even north of the border in Canada.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 7,264 Reads 422 Shares
At February's Franchise UPDATE Multi-Unit Conference in Dallas, attendees dug into their pockets to help Rocco Fiorentino's Little Rock Foundation. Multi-unit operators are known for generosity to charities, but the record for amounts may well go to Batteries Plus. Batteries Plus Multi-Unit Franchisee Leonard Cyphers, who owns three Atlanta-area Batteries Plus stores, was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson's disease in 1997 at age 48. He is managing his disease with diet, medication, and exercise, and the help of a pioneer in Parkinson's research, Dr. Ray Watts.
  • 3,534 Reads 7 Shares
Capital fuels growth, and multi-unit operators know how important growth is to their success. One finance company making growth happen for many area developers is GE Commercial Finance, Franchise Finance (GEFF). With more than $12 billion in served assets, GEFF has more than 6,000 customers and 21,000 property locations, mainly in the restaurant, hospitality, branded beverage, storage, and automotive industries.
  • Joan Szabo
  • 4,848 Reads 1 Shares
When Nikki Gahr Sells decided to forgo her school teaching job of eight years in 1983, a job in which her mother had spent a lifetime, she didn't know a lot about career paths for anyone, much less women, outside of teaching. She went to a staffing agency for help in finding a new job. In an unexpected twist, the staffing agency hired Sells. The agency, Express Personnel Services, was the first franchisee of Express Services Inc.
  • Karen Fritscher-Porter
  • 5,224 Reads 17 Shares
In 2000, Lou Brown, one of the more successful high-tech entrepreneurs of the 1990's, decided to exchange silicon for a grease gun, and took over struggling Precision Tune.
  • 5,729 Reads 67 Shares
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