Saladworks is offering franchisor support in a big way: three members of the executive leadership team, including the concept’s founder and CEO, are visiting new franchisees in their markets as part of the site selection process.
Twice a month, John Scardapane, Saladworks founder and CEO; Paul Steck, president; and Jena Henderson, vice president of brand services, leave the Conshohocken Home Office to visit with every outer market franchisee new to the Saladworks system. These visits combine the executive team’s knowledge of the Saladworks brand with the franchisee’s knowledge of their home market to create an even more successful starting point to develop new stores.
Scardapane, Steck, and Henderson utilize a market development book created by Saladworks’ development team, complete with a full demographic analysis, lists of major shopping malls and strip centers, competitors, and aerial maps to tour 12–16 areas of the franchisee’s market. The team and the franchisee are then able to come to a mutual agreement on the best areas within the market to start looking for a site. With the team’s combined 50 years of experience in real estate, and the franchisee’s knowledge of their market as a consumer, the team is able to help the franchisee gain a better understanding of what contributes to developing successful Saladworks locations.
Three new franchisees in outer markets have recently been visited by the executive team. Clint Wilkinson, franchisee for Austin, Texas; Travis Miller for Richmond, Virginia; and Unmesh Patel for Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina, were all astounded by the personalized attention, support, and collaborative knowledge from the team.
“I appreciated and was impressed by the fact that the founder of the company, the president, and a vice president would exclusively immerse themselves in our market during their trip. In some businesses you can’t even get someone on the phone, let alone have people fly out to visit sites with you,” Wilkinson says. “We are actually pursuing a lease now for one of the sites they helped to select during their visit.”
“The team’s real estate book was insightful because it coupled hard facts of the market with the knowledge of what makes a Saladworks successful. From traffic flow to visibility to where potential customers would work and live—the book and tour were definitely beneficial for us and will be for other franchisees,” Miller says.
Patel just opened Saladworks’ first North Carolina location on March 9th at The Streets at Southpoint in Durham, a site the team visited with him.
“I’ve been involved in franchising for a long time, and I have never seen a team of this level get so involved the way Saladworks does,” Patel says.
“Saladworks’ support really sets us apart from other franchise concepts in our industry, and we believe that support starts from day one,” Scardapane says. “Saladworks is matching our core market success in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in these outer markets—growing us into a truly national brand.”
“We joined Saladworks because we knew we’d have a proven business model and various resources available to us—and this is just another example of that. It is wonderful to have this type of support,” Miller says.
