Staying Relevant After the Emerging Brand Stage

In short

Dear Frannie is a franchise advice podcast with a panel. This episode has Rob Lancit and Mike Millett of Stratus Building Solutions and Liane Caruso of Hello CMO and Franchise Assembly. Each panelist gives a hot take, then the panel answers one listener question.

Asked whether fastest-growing is always a good thing, Rob explains that Stratus corporate sells master franchises, 73 at the time, and that the masters sell the unit franchises, more than a thousand in 2023, which is the count behind the ranking. On ethical franchising he describes the hardest part of a sales role: telling a candidate who is ready to write a check that they are not the right fit. He argues that an emerging brand that takes the fee anyway pays for it within two years.

His own hot take is that the two biggest deal killers are attorneys and family and friends. He separates the good attorneys he works with from those who give a personal opinion of the business in place of legal advice, and tells candidates at the start that the agreement will not be changed for anyone. Friends and family, he says, often discourage out of fear. He requires a spouse or partner in the conversation from the beginning, after an early deal in which a buyer had not told his wife.

On the listener question, he says the first 10 to 15 units are the easiest to sell and the next 10 to 15 the hardest, because franchisees now exist to validate the brand. Support is what keeps them validating.

Summary by the editors of this site. The original belongs to its publisher; listen or watch at the source.