WO M EN I N FR A NCH I S I N G fe at u r e
COVER STORY: Tiffany Hawkins | ZIPS CLEANERS
Building Momentum How far can you go with the right drive, know-how, a great team and a strong brand behind you? Tiffany Hawkins will tell you, “To infinity and beyond.”
When Tiffany Hawkins proudly declares she’s “building momentum,” she means it in more ways than one. To be sure, she’s referring to Momentum Advisors, the New York-based minorityowned wealth management firm she operates with her business partner Allan Boomer, with nearly $400MM under advisement. Under the Momentum brand, Hawkins and Boomer also co-host a podcast, “The Momentum Advisors Show,” offering personal finance advice, information on entrepreneurship and insight into how to build a successful financial legacy for yourself and your community. The Momentum brand also extends to an insurance brokerage, Momentum Risk Management, and a consulting business, Momentum Franchising, which helps other aspiring business owners get up and running with the franchise concept that fits them best. 30 Franchising MAGAZINE USA
My strongest characteristics are I’m a very strong leader and “ extremely strategic. That’s who I am, to a fault at times, It’s hard for me to just let things happen. ” But Hawkins is also referring to her drive to open, acquire and operate a legion of franchise locations, which currently includes a Retro Fitness site in Maryland, a THE MAX Challenge site in New Jersey and a steadily growing roster of ZIPS Cleaners locations in multiple states. The franchises are majority-owned by a fund Hawkins and Boomer run, Franklin Morgan Partners. Hawkins and Boomer started “dating” ZIPS, as they like to describe the process, in 2016 and opened their first store in 2017 in Waldorf, Md. In the past year, they acquired three ZIPS sites in Maryland to add to the two they already owned, then snapped up another three in Indiana
last month, having been hand-picked to do so by the ZIPS corporate team. They now have eight locations, a ninth under construction, a signed agreement to develop 20 more stores in Atlanta, and are in active negotiations to acquire additional stores. They hope to build more sites in Indiana once the dust has settled on their acquisition there, and to find other markets where they can spread the bold yellow ZIPS banner further. “In my mind, we have a long way to go [in developing ZIPS locations],” Hawkins says. “Allan asks me all the time how far I think we can go, and I answer like Buzz Lightyear – ‘To infinity and beyond.’” The pace and fervor of their expansion
