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Pull Up a Chair
George Knauf
Expert Advice

Pull Up a Chair

A note to franchisors, from a strategist who has spent 22 years on the buyer's side of the table, and 15 before that in operations and development on the franchisor side of the fence.

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Times Have Changed . . . New Strategies for Hiring the Best Employees Today
Evan Hackel
Expert Advice

Times Have Changed . . . New Strategies for Hiring the Best Employees Today

As recently as a decade ago, many companies were using the same approaches to hiring that they had been using for 30, 40, or even 50 years. About the only change was that they’d post jobs online instead of in printed publications. But from that point on, they would do the same old things – conducting screening interviews over the phone, face-to-face interviews in a company office, and then they would make an offer and hope they had found the right candidate.

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If the Business Cannot Run Without You
Lucas Frey
Expert Advice

If the Business Cannot Run Without You

Many founders think scaling means three things: more locations, more people, and more revenue. The logic feels straightforward because growth is often measured by expansion.

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Raise Your Price, Increase the Value of Your Business
Bianca Evans
Expert Advice

Raise Your Price, Increase the Value of Your Business

When a company has loyal, long-standing customers, the idea of raising prices every year can be unappealing. Many small business owners avoid raising prices for fear of hurting relationships, but that also means inflation is eroding profitability every year.

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The CFO as Translator: Bridging Finance and the Franchise Field
Molly Schaar, Chief Financial Officer, City Wide Facility Solutions
Expert Advice

The CFO as Translator: Bridging Finance and the Franchise Field

Early in my finance career, I believed what many leaders do: the CFO’s job was to safeguard the numbers. Keep the books clean, close the month, and report the results. That was the job.

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Specialized Food Concepts Thrive in Franchising
Chris Conner
Expert Advice

Specialized Food Concepts Thrive in Franchising

Take a drive down the main strip and you will catch a glimpse of the food franchises of yesterday — old standby giants that still stand, but may have lost some of their luster with today’s savvy diner. Familiarity has its perks, but in a restaurant market projected to top $1.55 trillion in sales in 2026, standing out from the crowd matters. Rather than pouring more dollars into marketing, some restaurants may find their edge in fine-tuning the menu itself, giving customers something distinctive to crave and a reason to choose them over the competition.

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Why Some Franchisees Succeed While Others Fail
Sarah Kulbatski
Expert Advice

Why Some Franchisees Succeed While Others Fail

Franchising is often promoted as a safer path to business ownership. Buyers gain access to an established brand, operational systems, marketing support and training that independent business owners typically must build from scratch. Yet despite these advantages, franchise outcomes vary dramatically. Some franchisees grow into multi-unit operators with thriving businesses, while others struggle financially, burn out or eventually close their doors. The difference is rarely luck alone. Success and failure in franchising usually come down to a combination of preparation, execution, mindset and the relationship between the franchisee and franchisor.

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The More Franchise Marketing Becomes Automated, the More Human It Needs to Become
Steve Bours
Expert Advice

The More Franchise Marketing Becomes Automated, the More Human It Needs to Become

Artificial intelligence and automation are rapidly changing how marketing is created and delivered. Advertising platforms are making more decisions automatically. AI can create copy, images and videos in seconds. Marketing teams can generate hundreds of variations of a campaign that would once have taken weeks to produce.

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The Numbers Behind Your Churn Problem, and How to Fix It
Matt Umholtz
Expert Advice

The Numbers Behind Your Churn Problem, and How to Fix It

Many franchisees have accepted turnover as a cost of doing business in QSR. You recruit, you train, someone leaves, you recruit again. The cycle is so familiar that it rarely seems worth a thought.

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The Silver Tsunami Is Here: What Buyers, Sellers and Franchisors Need to Know
Robin Gagnon, Co-Founder, CEO, We Sell Restaurants
Expert Advice

The Silver Tsunami Is Here: What Buyers, Sellers and Franchisors Need to Know

For years, the "Silver Tsunami" was a forecast. In 2026, it's showing up at the closing table. McKinsey estimates that roughly $5 trillion in baby boomer-owned businesses could come to market over the next decade. The same research highlights a troubling reality: only a small percentage of small businesses successfully transition through a sale. Many simply close.

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The Many Advantages of Multi-Unit Ownership
Chris Conner
Expert Advice

The Many Advantages of Multi-Unit Ownership

If you’re just starting out in business ownership, the first step can be intimidating. And with good reason. There are start-up costs, build-out considerations, real estate selection, and plenty of other decisions to make before you ever open the doors.

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How Inflation Is Affecting Franchise Owners
Sarah Kulbatski
Expert Advice

How Inflation Is Affecting Franchise Owners

Inflation remains one of the biggest challenges facing franchise owners driving up the cost of labour, food, supplies, rent, utilities, transportation, insurance, financing and other day-to-day operations. At the same time, cautious consumer spending, higher wage demands and unpredictable supply chains are putting additional pressure on profitability and long term stability.

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How to Find Buyers Outside of a Franchisor’s Listings
Jon Franz
Expert Advice

How to Find Buyers Outside of a Franchisor’s Listings

A question that often comes up: “Can I sell my franchise without the franchisor’s approval?” The short answer is no. Every franchisor must approve a buyer before you can close a deal. However, that doesn’t mean that listing with corporate is your only means to find buyers.

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Who Moved the Franchise?
Evan Hackel, CFE
Expert Advice

Who Moved the Franchise?

There is a wonderful little book about change called Who Moved My Cheese? by Dr. Spencer Johnson. It tells a simple story about characters living in a maze who discover that the cheese they have depended on is suddenly gone.

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What Franchise Founders Can’t Delegate
Lucas Frey
Expert Advice

What Franchise Founders Can’t Delegate

In the early stages, founders create enormous value through proximity. They know the business, understand the customer, recognize when something feels wrong and can usually make decisions faster than anyone around them. That ability helped build the core business and often carries the first franchise locations through uncertainty.

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NOBODY WARNS YOU ABOUT TUESDAY
George Knauf
Expert Advice

NOBODY WARNS YOU ABOUT TUESDAY

A record producer released a book this month about failure. I bought it expecting nothing. I finished it thinking he had described the actual experience of business ownership more honestly than most of what our industry publishes.

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Structure Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling
Ricky Kalmon
Expert Advice

Structure Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling

For more than three decades, I have demonstrated that the same instructions, resources, and opportunities can still produce completely different results because structure may provide the path, but mindset ultimately determines how each person navigates it.

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Beyond AI Content: How Franchise Brands Can Stand Out in a Sea of Sameness
Steve Buors
Expert Advice

Beyond AI Content: How Franchise Brands Can Stand Out in a Sea of Sameness

Artificial intelligence has rapidly become one of the most influential forces in modern marketing. New platforms and tools appear almost daily, each promising faster execution, lower costs, and greater productivity. Marketing leaders are being encouraged to embrace AI as a way to accomplish more while operating with increasingly limited resources.

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How Multi-Tiered Dispute Resolution Systems Can Resolve Disputes More Efficiently and Effectively than Arbitration or Litigation—and even Strengthen Franchise Relationships
David G Thomas
Expert Advice

How Multi-Tiered Dispute Resolution Systems Can Resolve Disputes More Efficiently and Effectively than Arbitration or Litigation—and even Strengthen Franchise Relationships

Disputes are an inevitable part of doing business, particularly when parties are in business together within a franchise system. For many franchisors and franchisees, arbitration has long been viewed as a faster, less expensive alternative to litigation. Although arbitration often delivers efficiencies, it is still at its core a rights-based dispute resolution process, i.e., like litigation, arbitration places the outcome of a dispute in the hands of a third party.

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Behind Every Franchisee Is a Story Worth Telling
By Scott White, Co-Founder & CEO, Thunderly
Expert Advice

Behind Every Franchisee Is a Story Worth Telling

I’ve spent more than three decades in franchise marketing. In that time, I’ve had a front-row seat to thousands of stories that don’t get told often enough and are often the best part of the business.

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Keeping Pace with Change Starts by Living Your Values
By Evan Hackel
Expert Advice

Keeping Pace with Change Starts by Living Your Values

The pace of change has never been faster - and it will never again be this slow.

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Your Calendar Reveals Your Brand's Ceiling
Lucas Frey
Expert Advice

Your Calendar Reveals Your Brand's Ceiling

Your Calendar Reveals Your Brand's Ceiling As a franchise organization grows, a founder’s calendar can quietly become its greatest constraint. The same habits and responsibilities that helped build the business can eventually prevent it from scaling. In “Your Calendar Reveals Your Brand's Ceiling,” discover how leadership time becomes one of the most valuable forms of organizational capital—and why sustainable growth depends on shifting from doing the work to building the systems, leaders, and capabilities that allow others to do it. Take a closer look at where your time is going, what it is truly producing, and whether your calendar is building the future of your franchise—or limiting it.

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The Question Most Franchise Investors Never Ask Themselves
BY GEORGE KNAUF | FRANCHISE INVESTMENT STRATEGIST | FOUNDER, ORCA FRANCHISING
Expert Advice

The Question Most Franchise Investors Never Ask Themselves

You’ve done the research. You know the numbers. You’ve looked at the brands. But there’s one question that will determine everything — and most people avoid it entirely.

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How Much Do You Want It?
By Marshall Reddy
Expert Advice

How Much Do You Want It?

If you have a lawn, you’ve met a weed. Some weeds seem unstoppable; you can cut them, pull them, cover them with a barrier and a bag of gravel, and in a couple of weeks, they’ll be pushing their way up to the sunlight. They survive. They persist, no matter what you throw at them. For many, being employed can feel just like being a weed.

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