Questions from the Audience

The Pillars of Franchising show airs live every Thursday at 4:00 CT/5:00ET. Because we are a live show, we encourage viewers to call in and ask questions of our guests or our Million Dollar Mentors. Going forward, we will feature some of your questions in every issue of the magazine. If you have questions during one of our shows, we welcome you to call in during showtime at 323-580-5755 or email us ahead of time at yourdream@pillarsoffranchising.com

What brands would you recommend for somebody who’s interested in going into multi-unit location ownership?

Jerry Akers: Sure. There are a lot of good ones. I don’t know if I want to into naming a lot of specific brands because frankly, they all have good and bad things about them. But one thing I would tell you is if you’re going to be in multiple units, especially over a pretty large geographic area, try and buy into systems that need less of your one-on-one time. In other words, you don’t have to be in that location very often. They kind of run themselves. So, I’ll give you an example. We do hair care, and we’ve got area managers across the two states that take care of a certain number of salons. So, we don’t have to be there all the time. Once you train those area managers and you have weekly meetings with them to go over what’s going on in their business it’s pretty easy to run.

Our chiropractic clinics kind of run themselves because we’re dealing with some really topnotch professionals. But if you get into some other brands where it’s very labor intensive from the top end, from your level, it can be problematic. It can be time-consuming. It can, you can actually hold back the organization because you simply can’t be in all places at all times. So, rather than naming franchises, I would look at categories. I’ve got a good friend that owns Smoothie King and there are several great brands out there that compete with them. Tropical Smoothie Café is an example along with two or three others.

Kristin Selmeczy: And those are things that don’t take a lot of your time. If you’ve got a manager in them, they, they will take care of themselves And it is important to understand that not all franchise systems will allow you to be a semi-absentee or absentee owner. So, Jerry, you brought up Tropical Smoothie Café. I had gone into one recently, and I asked where the owner was and the young woman said that he lived in Michigan. They just came in every now and then. And it’s not that you don’t need strong leadership and not that you don’t need strong management, especially with, you know, you’re typically employing younger people who maybenot be as responsible as you need them to be when you’re customer-facing. But if you get the hiring right, it gives you the flexibility not to have to be in that shop every single day.

JA: It’s about leadership, and it starts with you. And then if you’ve got a hierarchy, like an operations manager and a general manager and a store manager and so on, you’ve got to have that, that culture and the system built to do it. But again, it is not that complicated. One other point is that not all brands work for multi-unit ownership. One that comes to mind right away is Chick-fil-A where they typically want you to only own one. And they want you to be onsite a certain number of hours per week. So that would be one where you would not be able to potentially have more than one.

KS: There are some others like that. Crumbl Cookies is another one that wants you in there a certain amount of time. And they tend to want you to own one. I know there are extenuating times when they may let you own more than one, but not just anybody. The listener needs to understand that when you are having those calls with brokers or franchise reps, you ask those kinds of questions. Is there an opportunity for me to own multiples? How far out can I go? You know, some of them may want you to stay in the same state or the same region. Others don’t really care. If you can put together a great team on the other side of the country, they will allow you to do that, especially with virtual communication right now.

Why is female ownership in franchising so low - only 31%?

KS: I have to tell you, personally, I wish I had gotten into it sooner. And, I can say the IFA is doing a great job at engaging women in franchising. And that’s only been the last couple of years that that’s been going on. The SBA has a program for women-owned businesses. There are a lot of resources out there, but I think part of it is, you know, I hate to make this sound bad, but I think we’re also damn busy that sometimes it just is another thing to take on. Sometimes it’s a matter of having the guts.

Sometimes, it’s a matter of knowing that there are many resources out there. We’re just so overscheduled that we just don’t take time to think about what is it that we really want to do with our lives. We’re so busy being moms, and hockey, moms, and baseball, moms. We are doing a million different things. And so, I hope that we see more and more people wanting to get into it because I think that the franchise model is perfect for women who either have experience in business or don’t quite frankly. Um, but what are your thoughts, Jerry?

JA: You touched on several things there, and I’m going to preface this, so I don’t get burned at the stake with the rest of the conversation, but I’m going to preface it with, I will do anything I can to level the playing field and to get more women into it. I think you’re right on that. Franchising is absolutely the perfect opportunity for women to grow and expand and own their own businesses and help their families. I have this vision of more single moms getting into it so they can change the trajectory of the family’s life. But you, you touched on the mom thing and women so often are tied up the first, you know, 20 years of their adult life dealing with children.

So, it may be hard for them to even think about owning a business, going to a nine-to-five job is way easier in that situation so that you can rush home to your kids and make it to ball games and all those kinds of things. And that’s great. And although it’s changing, unfortunately, the vast majority of childcare still falls on women. Until that part of it gets into a different position or until women say,” I can do this too,” which some of them do like you and many of my friends that are in franchising, I think many women will just get stuck in that position. It’s hard for them to break out of it and if you suddenly wake up and it’s 38 or 40 years old, whether you’re a man or woman, you may not decide to get in it into a franchise system or own your own business.

JA: And since women do get tied up in the whole child thing for a long time, I think it’s to be expected -- not because it’s the right thing, but because it’s just the way that the math is working right now. So, I would like to see women, young women get more into it. In fact, we talk about schools with franchising programs like the Titus Center for Franchising down at Palm Beach Atlantic University, and the University of Louisville has a great one. There are others out there, too. That is going to help spur a lot more women to get into franchising early on. And we’ll start kind of balancing the equation a little bit.

KS: Yeah. I’ll tell you. I know that there are a lot of groups out there that help support women who want to get into this. Funding tends to sometimes be an option for people, but I have to tell you, don’t let it be a barrier. Feel free to reach out to Elizabeth and me. This is kind of one of our hot buttons. We are dedicated to making sure that we can find resources for women. Two weeks ago, we did the women in franchising panel. Take a listen to that episode. You’ll find people who had no idea how they were going to do it. I for one just knew I was tired of balancing a demanding job and two kids (at the time). And then of course, right after we bought my franchise, we closed and guess what! Baby three’s here. And so, it’s like - what happens? But it can all be done. And there are some great homebased models for a woman who wants to get into it but isn’t sure how much she can commit. So please reach out.