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Childrens Feature Articles

Franchise Sector Showcase

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

Even in tough economic times, franchisors are stepping up and giving back to causes and organizations they - and their franchisees - believe in. Many of these activities fall under the radar, displaced by news and events deemed more immediate or important. What could be more important than raising money and donating time to help those in need, especially when budgets are pinched and time is at a premium? That's why we're taking the time to recognize our contemporary heroes.
  • Franchise Update
  • 4,132 Reads 1 Shares
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."
  • John Carroll
  • 9,078 Reads 675 Shares
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."
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 7,113 Reads 1 Shares
Joe Drury's personal history reads like a rags-to-riches movie script. Born in Canton, Ohio, he was on his own at 14 and "chose to survive," he says. "Everything I did, I attacked it like it was my last meal." He started out working in a Wendy's. He excelled and worked his way into the corporate office, where his mentor and "best friend," Wendy's founder Dave Thomas, taught him everything he knew about running a franchise and being a successful franchisee. He rose to vice president of operations at Wendy's, but left the company in the early 1990s to form the Carolina Restaurant Group, which bought 26 distressed Wendy's restaurants. By 2000, that number was up to 100 and sales had risen significantly.
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 13,376 Reads 11 Shares
Sam had developed and owned a successful retail operation during his business career. He also tried to be diligent by having what he thought was a sound estate plan executed before he died. He and his wife Sally felt they had everything taken care of. So when Sam died unexpectedly, Sally was dismayed to see the vehement dispute that developed between her two sons as to who would operate the company going forward. Apparently Sam had spoken to both of them about running the company if something happened to him, but he had failed to make this decision. Sally ultimately found her only choice to resolve the dispute was to just sell the business.
  • Andrew D. Horowitz, CPhD, and Nicholas K. Niemann, Esq.
  • 4,088 Reads 66 Shares
As a student at Florida State University, the entrepreneurial spirit in Sam Osborne led him to own and operate a small personal training business. One of his clients was David Walker, who was soon to be a co-founder of Tropical Smoothie Café. Things have "worked out" well for both.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 7,437 Reads 212 Shares
Ella Avery-Smothers may have been a C-level student in high school, but she's far from average. This 63-year-old multi-unit owner, who operates seven Burger Kings in the Los Angeles area, pulled herself out of poverty as a child to become a player in the franchise restaurant industry. And she's just opened two El Pollo Locos, with two more under construction.
  • Amy Zuckerman
  • 7,192 Reads 1,021 Shares
As with anything valuable, lead supply is sometimes short. Yet lead demand, the lifeblood of the sales force, keeps demanding. The tectonic shifts in our financial, business, and cultural bases naturally have affected franchise lead flow, an effect that shows up differently for each franchisor. Many, however, are experiencing some sort of shortfall in the quality and/or quantity of leads, and today, more than ever, customary lead generation methods are being challenged.
  • Philip St. Jacques
  • 4,468 Reads 1 Shares
You'd think selling franchises in one of the worst economies since the Great Depression would daunt even the hardiest franchisor. But many franchisors, both well-established and new to the scene, keep on plugging when the economy goes south. Some even consider this a great time to grow.
  • Amy Zuckerman
  • 7,376 Reads 8 Shares
Greg Hamer, Sr. grew up working in his father's Louisiana oilfield service business. But in 1982, he began to put time and money into growing a franchise business that has since grown to 50 locations.
  • John Carroll
  • 7,849 Reads 4 Shares
About 20 years ago, Greg Cutchall learned a crucial lesson. An investor group he worked with forced him out of a chain of KFC restaurants in Omaha, units he had operated and helped to build. That fired him up to make things happen for himself.
  • John Carroll
  • 6,239 Reads 1 Shares
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All franchisors place a high priority on gaining new recruits and responding to contacts from prospective franchisees. But who's setting the pace on performance? Once again, Franchise UPDATE's mystery shoppers hit the phones--and the websites--checking out franchisors from coast to coast to see which were doing the very best work. The best and the brightest were recognized in the 10th annual STAR (Speaking To And Responding) Awards--from the three top national performers to the companies that excelled at fielding telephone contacts or quickly getting back to website leads.
  • John Carroll
  • 5,056 Reads 12 Shares
Even with a billion young people entering the global workforce over the next 10 years, we still face the tough challenge of hiring top talent for our organizations. Attracting, recruiting, and retaining top talent are challenges I faced as director of talent services (recruiting) at Wal-Mart. Recruiting has become more than just building relationships; it is about producing ROI and justifying expenses made throughout the process.
  • Randy Cox
  • 4,553 Reads 12 Shares
When your grandfather is one of the co-founders of a successful franchise concept and system, it might seem natural for subsequent generations to be involved. But that wasn't always the case for Justin and Sally Haddock. "My grandfather, Jack Fulk, along with Richard Thomas, co-founded Bojangles'," says Justin. "My mother and father followed suit and they have been franchisees since 1980." In fact, his folks still operate 39 Bojangles' locations today.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 4,064 Reads
Lisa Flynn, a mother of two young boys, never relished having her children photographed. For her, birth announcements and holiday portraits meant either spending a small fortune for a professional photographer who didn't cater to colicky clientele or settling for cheesy props and fuzzy blue backdrops at the mall portrait studio.
  • BusinessWeek
  • 3,547 Reads 1 Shares
Seventy-year-old Kelly White waited a long time before exploring the world of franchising. In fact, he came out of retirement at age 66 to open his HoneyBaked Ham store in Silverdale, Wash. "Retirement was just too boring for us," says White, referring to himself and his wife Sue. Together they manage the store and a staff of eight part-time and full-time employees. White's hands-on style and love of running the business have served him well. That's probably because he founded and operated his own construction company for 25 years, much of that while concurrently running an apple orchard.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 4,366 Reads 11 Shares
It is a quiet Saturday morning. If you are the average American, the downturn in the economy has started you to think about how it will impact your career and the opportunities for your children as they enter the workforce. Articles about Enron and Tyco and Global Crossing and other corporate scandals abound and some of the most respected brand names internationally are talking about layoffs and bankruptcy.
  • Michael H. Seid, founder and managing director of MSA - Michael H. Seid & Associates
  • 31,232 Reads 13 Shares
Florida-based businessman Peter Economys and New York entrepreneur Rob Tobias have a very special talent important to area developers: they're champion multi-taskers. But the concentration and mental agility necessary for the success of any area developer is doubly important for them--because each oversees multiple concepts.
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 6,168 Reads 129 Shares
If you were fortunate enough to attend the annual Area Developer Multi-Unit Franchising Conference this April in Scottsdale, you know that the weather was terrific, the facility outstanding, educational sessions abundant, and that franchise networking opportunities flourished late into the cool desert night.
  • Bill Hall
  • 3,941 Reads 1 Shares
Ask any small business owner in the country how important customer retention and loyalty are and they'll tell you they rank right up top of the list of business priorities. It's no different in franchising.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 4,116 Reads 76 Shares
In franchising, no one has to be reminded of the importance of making deals and signing fabulous new franchisees. But unless you actually open new units, inking the deal is only part of the story. This important distinction--between units sold and units opened--led us to examine six franchises that grew by more than 100 units between 2005 and 2006 and ask them how they did it.
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 5,386 Reads 25 Shares
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Running a racquet and health club is a time-consuming business and one that Bruce Forsythe knew quite a bit about. He'd been running one with his partners in Long Island, N.Y. for about 14 years when the team decided to turn one of their former tennis court areas into a second -- and different -- business endeavor.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 3,116 Reads 58 Shares
When Lino DeFeo bought a Sign-A-Rama franchise in West Palm Beach, Fla., he didn't know much about signs. That was about 15 years ago. DeFeo had sold his trucking business in Manhattan and moved to Florida with his wife Maria and their two young children to join a family business. But that didn't work out exactly as planned. "I got out before we totally killed each other," he says with a laugh.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 10,347 Reads 1,014 Shares
Motherhood is one of the toughest jobs in the world - just ask any mom. It's often thankless, seems endless, and certainly lacks much worldly prestige. Life for mom can be even more challenging if she desires to work outside the home to boot. There are, after all, limited choices beyond the full-time job and requisite daycare for the kids. In a month where we stop for a day (May 11) to recognize all that mom does, it's interesting to note that more and more moms are finding a place at home and in franchising. Moms like Liz Norwood in Denver, Colo.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 3,803 Reads
In today's business environment, the mystery shopper - the person who pretends to be a customer or potential client while noting every conceivable plus and minus of their shopping or consumer experience - is a fact of life.
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 4,899 Reads 19 Shares
Last Saturday, mom and dad packed the kids into the minivan and headed out to the fitness center (Curves for her and Athletic Republic for him). First they dropped the kids off (one at Huntington Learning Centers, the other at Abrakadoodle). Before they left, they'd made sure the woman from Bathfitters knew exactly what they wanted done with their new shower, and reminded the man from Spring-Green to cut the back lawn extra short this week.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 5,499 Reads 1 Shares
To those readers who are interested in legal affairs in the franchising context and are not subscribers to the American Bar Association's Forum on Franchising's listserv, you are missing one of the greatest shows in town. Listservs, chat rooms, blogs, and whatever else, are means to dialogue on the Internet and can turn into today's electronic equivalent of a lynch mob, as demonstrated by two recent exchanges on the forum's listserv on the subject of arbitration.
  • Rupert M. Barkoff
  • 4,487 Reads 16 Shares
In the chronicles of franchising history, some names come immediately to mind - Ray Kroc, S. Truett Cathy, Dave Thomas. The names conjure up images of independent-minded entrepreneurs with the savvy, know-how, and vision to create successful business models replicable anywhere. As part of the celebration of Franchise UPDATE's 20th anniversary, we look back at some of these colorful, inspiring, and sometimes controversial characters.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 6,756 Reads 15 Shares
In the chronicles of franchising history, some names come immediately to mind - Ray Kroc, S. Truett Cathy, Dave Thomas. The names conjure up images of independent-minded entrepreneurs with the savvy, know-how, and vision to create successful business models replicable anywhere. As part of the celebration of Franchise UPDATE's 20th anniversary, we look back at some of these colorful, inspiring, and sometimes controversial characters.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 6,901 Reads
The year's fourth quarter marks the anniversary of my start in the investment management business many, many years ago. It also happens to coincide with the time of year my three kids go back to school.
  • Carol Clark
  • 3,788 Reads 1 Shares
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