For more than a year, we have watched, read and experienced the challenges of driving consumers to our brands, finding money to open new concepts and identifying qualified franchisees. There are signs that point to a consistent recovery incline happening as we speak. We are certainly seeing it in our Planet Smoothie and Shane's Rib Shack concepts.
Sourcing money is a different challenge, but with the stock market's impressive run, investors are returning to the game. However, they remain few and far between and so we believe dollars exist for those brands with compelling stories, differentiated products and a vision to scale beyond the four walls of their business. Let's reserve that topic for another blog entry.
That leaves us with finding good franchisees. By good we mean experienced, reasonably well capitalized and eager to be engaged in the business. If not the latter, then they better be married to an impressive GM. Today, I believe to find good franchisees, one must explore multi-concept, multi-unit, retired military, entrepreneur and what we call buddy-share (three or more colleagues investing). I also believe it takes multiple versions of franchising: traditional vs operating partner that lends itself to varying degrees of financial commitment and profitability. Once you have defined your strategy for who, then you must address the question how do you find these candidates.
Without handing over the golden goose, I can tell you it's an involved recipe of PR, Social Media, Market Tours and overall brand visibility that enables you to show up on the radar of good franchisees while not burning too much time sorting through the bad and the ugly.
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