In a landscape crowded with AI tools and virtual everything, these franchise executives are finding that some of the industry’s oldest playbooks still deliver the best results
Franchising has never been more technologically advanced, with AI-powered site selection, virtual tours, and algorithm-driven lead scoring reshaping how brands find and evaluate candidates. However, alongside these advances, we’re seeing some of the most effective growth tactics from the past were never broken. From in-person meetings to old-school relationship building, a handful of franchise leaders are proving that “old school” and “high performing” aren’t mutually exclusive.
Here, five executives across different sectors of franchising share the 90s-era strategies and why they’re driving results in 2026.
1. In-Person Discovery Days – Gerardo Flores, CDO of Marco’s Pizza
In-person Discovery Day dates back to Marco’s earliest years of franchising, bringing candidates to headquarters to sit across the table from the people who’d actually become franchisees, not a slide deck. We never abandoned that tradition, and in 2026, we’re doubling down on it.
Earlier this year we announced our new Operations Center of Excellence in Orlando – an extension of our Toledo headquarters, where we will host in-person Discovery days with candidates around the world. Prospects will have the opportunity meet our executive team in-person so they can ask the tough questions directly to our leaders and gauge for themselves who they’d be building a business with. We take this a step further with the Operations Center of Excellence having a real-store kitchen environment where prospective franchisees don’t just hear about operations, they can see and experience them firsthand.
In a market flooded with polished pitch decks and virtual walkthroughs, that kind of real, unscripted access to decision-makers has become a differentiator. Candidates today are more skeptical and better informed than ever, and they want to look someone in the eye before investing in the franchise opportunity. Discovery Day gives them that – an honest, two-way conversation where they can challenge us as much as we’re evaluating them. It’s a 90s-era tactic that works even better today, precisely because it’s become rare.
There’s validation with 80 new store openings slated for 2026 as Marco’s continues to grow its footprint.
2. Empowering the Team, Not Managing the Deal – Mark Lubin, CDO of Celebree School
In an industry increasingly obsessed with pipeline dashboards, it’s easy to lose sight of a simple truth: my number one customer isn’t the franchisee prospect. It’s my team. Over 25 years across consulting, operations, sales, and now franchise development, I’ve learned that if the people closing those deals don’t feel supported and trusted, the prospect experience will never be what it should be.
I believe in process and discipline, but my focus is removing bottlenecks. I trust my team to own it. And that starts with giving my team the resources and latitude to think critically and bring me solutions.
The results show up in the confidence our entire team brings to every candidate and franchise owner conversation. When they feel trusted, they close deals with the same authenticity and directness prospects are craving in an increasingly automated market.
This relationship-forward approach increasingly gets lost in today’s loud, tech-forward environment. It’s a 90s-era belief focusing on people first, then process, applied to a 2026 team.
3. Bringing Back the Membership Economy – Ryan Rao, Chief Development Officer of VIO Med Spa
In franchise development, we spend a lot of time talking about what is new: new technology, new acquisition channels, and new ways to drive transactions. But one of the strongest growth models is one businesses used exceptionally well in the 90s: membership. Gyms, warehouse clubs, and video stores understood that the goal was not simply to make a sale. It was to create a reason for customers to return consistently and drive lifetime value for the business.
When I evaluate a franchise model, I look closely at the customer acquisition cost and lifetime value of the customer. If an owner has to win every customer back from scratch each month and is overly reliant on one-time purchases, the business can become dependent on LTO promotions to drive revenue. A strong membership model changes that dynamic by creating a base of recurring revenue and customers who are already invested in the brand.
For franchise owners, that predictability is powerful. Greater visibility into monthly revenue and demand allows them to make smarter decisions around staffing, inventory, marketing and future investment. It also gives owners the confidence to focus on building the business for the long term instead of continuously chasing the next one-time transaction.
But membership alone is not a strategy. A recurring charge only becomes recurring revenue when the customer continues to see real value. Franchise leaders have to build the right service mix, operating systems, and customer experience around the model so franchisees are equipped to earn that renewal every month.
At VIO Med Spa, we have applied that thinking to aesthetics, but the lesson holds across franchising. Sustainable growth comes from creating a model that benefits both the owner and the customer over time.
To me, that is the 90s lesson worth reviving. Do not build a business that has to win the same customer over from scratch every month. Build a recurring revenue engine by giving people enough value to keep choosing you.
4. Recruiting Franchisees Like Family – Tom Wylie, President of Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii
Franchise development has become a data exercise. Pipelines, dashboards and cost-per-lead metrics dominate the conversation, and somewhere along the way the human side of recruiting an owner got lost. In the 90s, the strongest brands grew differently. They recruited franchisees the way you welcome someone into a family, leading with shared values and letting the returns follow. That is a philosophy worth reviving.
At Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, the family, or as we call it, Ohaha, aspect is not simply a talking point. We build it into the fabric of how we’re growing our brand. We want to create an experience, not just a transaction. One of these experiences happens around a destination location. Families scurry into a Bad Ass Coffee before heading to the beach, grabbing an array of coffee drinks and memorabilia merch to take with them long after the vacation concludes.
These destination locations, and the high-volume sales within each one, are why we’re hyper-focused on bringing franchisees into our Ohana. We know the nostalgia it brings our customers, and the financial gain potential it affords our franchisees.
That is what we sell prospective franchisees on. We are not asking an owner to open another drive-through on a busy corner just to churn and burn through customers. That isn’t who our Bad Ass Coffee brand is. We are inviting them to build a gathering place, a destination in their community that its visitors come back to again and again. We invest in the grassroots of family, one location and one owner at a time. We look for people who understand that a great cafe brings families together.
The tactics that built great franchise brands in the 90s were never really about the decade. They were about people and the places that brought them together. For us, returning to that destination-driven, family-first foundation is how we plan to grow Bad Ass Coffee for the next generation of owners and guests.
5. Leading With the Why – Chris Connolly, Vice President, Franchise Sales at BrightStar Care
Ask almost any BrightStar Care franchisee why they got into this, and you will hear a name. A mother who needed care no one could quite deliver. A husband who wanted to stay home instead of moving to a facility. A neighbor who navigated a diagnosis with no one in their corner. Nearly everyone who joins us has been touched personally by the exact need our locations exist to meet.
That is not a coincidence, and it is not new. In the 90s, long before “purpose” became a line in a pitch deck, people started businesses because something in their own life demanded it. Conviction came first and the business plan followed. Somewhere along the way, franchise recruiting drifted toward lead scores and conversion rates, and that personal spark got treated as a nice-to-have rather than the whole point.
We treat it as the whole point. When we evaluate a candidate, the why matters as much as the balance sheet, because it is what sustains an owner when the work gets hard. Care is demanding. What carries a franchisee through the difficult days is remembering the person who made them want to do this in the first place.
The truth underneath all of it is simple. The need for care touches everyone. It always has, and it always will. Every one of us will either need it or love someone who does. Franchisees who understand that do not just build rewarding businesses. They build something their communities lean on, and they mentor the next owners to do the same. That is the tactic worth carrying forward from the 90s and well beyond.
What ties these five approaches goes far beyond nostalgia – it’s a recognition that growth built on genuine relationships tends to outlast growth built on convenience alone. As franchising becomes more digital and more data-driven, the brands willing to slow down and show up in genuine ways are finding that’s exactly what sets them apart. Sometimes the most forward-thinking move is remembering what worked in the first place.