Too often are franchise sales people guilty of not selling in earnest. Yes, they will say that they are giving an effort but the evidence is clear that they are not really giving it their full attention and effort—they have failed to recognize the importance of selling in earnest.

At FranchiseOpportunities.com we are responsible for generating more than 25,000 franchise leads per month. As such I am privy to many a franchise sales call “dropped-ball”. We receive feed-back on a regular basis from prospective franchisees informing us how well and how poorly the franchisor’s sales call have gone. For example, last week I received this e-mail from a prospective franchisee:

Between the unprofessional contact made today, and the spelling error in the email, we will not be pursuing a business venture with you. We would prefer to invest elsewhere. Good luck with your franchise.

Cordially, A. Kann

Clearly, the salesman failed to sell in earnest. The manner in which he could have prosecuted his duties in a more earnest fashion can be found in a line from Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest.

In the play Algernon Moncrieff quips

If I am occasionally a little overdressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.

While this line may drip with satirical arrogance franchisors would do well to find the importance in the sentiments behind the lines. To wit: that one must always be on the top one’s game when one is selling, and each sales person must be able to compensate for a short-coming in one area of his/her presentation with a stellar showing in another area.

Many are the instances in which I hear from a prospective franchisee that the franchise sales person was either unprofessional and/or unprepared. Algernon Moncrieff would have considered this person to be “under-dressed”. Of course it should go without saying that sartorially speaking being a little over-dressed is always better than being under-dressed. To extend again the metaphor to franchise sales, the franchise sales person who is a “little overdressed” will almost always come out ahead of the franchise sales person that is underdressed. For one can never be over-professional or over-prepared when one is talking to a prospective franchisee. (As an aside, I would argue that all sales people should be literally a “little overdressed”. It becomes much too easy to not give an earnest effort when one has too casual an attitude about the sales call. Therefore, professional attire should be de rigueur in all sales rooms.)

As far as being over-educated, a sales person can never be over-educated. Unfortunately, too many franchise sales teams come across as being the opposite of over educated—they are seen as un-educated. In what form does this take shape? First and foremost in the form of poorly constructed e-mails. Many are the e-mails that I read from franchisors that are replete with misspelled words and poor grammar. But I also know that many prospective franchisees find poor grammar on the phone to be a big strike against the franchise.

But education is not simply scholastic. To be educated is to understand the nuances of the sales process—specifically, when to push and how hard to push? Too many times we are told by prospective franchisees that the franchisor’s sales persistence is viewed as rudeness and/or a failure to respect the privacy of the individual and his or her wishes on when to be contacted and by what means. I am fully aware that there is a delicate line between pushiness and persistence. But the franchise sales team with the most franchise sales is the team that walks this line with the greatest aplomb.

The recession has made the franchise sales person’s job much more challenging. There is nothing any of us—franchisor or franchise portal—can do about it. What can be done is to make certain that sales people are both “over-dressed” and “over-educated”.

The web is replete with web designers who have “over-designed” websites. Where simple CSS would suffice the web designers have used Flash. And too numerous to count are the sites that are so mind-achingly complex that the user fails to engage the site in the way the designer (and more importantly, the owner) had anticipated. This phenomena is not unlike what can occur when architects “over-design” buildings. It is therefore instructive to investigate whether the movements in building architecture over the last 100 years can be instructive in any manner. Specifically, whether web designers might be able to learn from the modernist architecture movement of the last century. Overly ornate designs; designs without relation to the function of the building and its intended use by its occupants; and designs that evince no understanding of the landscape in which the building was constructed are all “problems” that modernist architects sought to rectify. One such architect in particular was Richard Neutra.

Neutra was a Viennese born architect who attained prominence in America as one of the great modernist architects. He designed many homes in the Southern California area. Homes designed by Richard Neutra combined Bauhaus modernism with Southern California building traditions. Neutra’s houses were dramatic, flat-surfaced buildings placed into a carefully arranged landscape.

“Neutra believed that the architect should strive for a response to space and time that may be only fleeting, yet in its intensity becomes truly memorable.”

Neutra studied how occupants used a building and how those occupants flowed from room to room. He based his designs on the needs of the owners and occupants.
Neutra used courtyards, sliding glass doors and walls and mirrors to reflect exterior views; all of which encouraged a relationship between occupants and nature. His designs were complementary to its surroundings. The buildings did not overpower the landscape. Stated simply, nothing was over-designed in a Richard Neutra home. Coves were simple, doors were left untrimmed and landscaping was important but minimal. In a Neutra designed building there was an emphasis on purpose and quality over quantity.

It takes no great leap of imagination to see how similar ideas can be used in website design. To enter a Neutra designed home is to understand immediately the purpose of the home AND the character of its owners. A website should strive for a similar effect. Websites must not be a confusing mess that is nothing more than the result of an ego-driven designer. Less is more.

A designer must strive for the user to use the website effortlessly. The user must use the site in a manner that is both conscious and unconscious. At the point where the user is conscious of having to navigate a site the purpose of the site is perforce vitiated. In the same way that Buddhist meditation requires one to not think about not thinking, the end-user should not think about navigating around the site. The site should offer a feng-shui environment that is purposeful but not apparent. Navigating the site should be organic, and the process should exhibit the same free flow of time and space that a Neutra home exhibited. A website should be designed to satisfy the regular user as well as the one-time user—and this satisfaction should occur in the same way and to the same degree.
Neutra remarked that

A building can be designed to satisfy “by the month” with the regularity of a provider. Or it can give satisfaction in a very different way, “by the moment,” the fraction of a second, with the thrill of a lover.

Web designers would do well to study more closely how exactly he did so.

W.C. Garth Snider

Part II.

Analogizing vertical lead generation sites to retail shopping malls.

To understand more clearly why it is in the interest of both the Concept and the VLGA to allow for the end-user to inquire about as many Concepts as possible, it may be helpful to view the VLGA as a retail shopping mall. The VLGS owner purchases and develops a website where it plans to advertise other company’s products in order to generate interest in said companies. Similar to stores that choose to rent space in a mall, Concepts rent space on the VLGS. In both instances, both Concept and storeowner are free to choose not to enter into a contract with either the VLGS or the mall owner. People go to a mall exactly because there are many stores to choose from and that is exactly what is attractive to the consumer – the ability to go to one destination and investigate the quality, type and price of many different products with the opportunity to ultimately purchase one or more items. Each shop owner could find its own retail space and hope that its location is sufficient to garner enough traffic to stay in business. Similarly, Concepts can advertise only their product on the Internet through either SEO and/or SEM efforts. But by doing so the Concept forgoes the chance to be found by consumers who might not have been interested or been able to find its product initially.

To analogize back to the mall example, people may not have known that they were going to buy a shirt from Store A when they decided to go shopping; in fact, they may have set-out to buy a pair of shoes at Store B. But upon seeing the shirt at Store A realized that they would rather have the shoes instead. This transaction likely would not have occurred had it not been for the dynamics of the retail mall. Of course, the owner of Store A will complain that it lost a sale precisely because of the retail mall – or more precisely because Store B and by extension, the owner of the mall and his decision to rent to Store B. What this analysis fails to understand is that but for the mall, Store A might never have had the opportunity for the sale in the first instance. This would be the case if Store A was a less well capitalized company and/or one that sold products that were not as well known such that being in the mall was the only way Store A could have remained either profitable or the way that it maintained its greatest profitability. Whereas both Store A and Store B would like to have the event of the sale without any competition from the other, the only reason for the sale was competition that resulted from the dynamics of the retail mall. Neither the mall owner or Store A or Store B could remain in business if Store A got an “exclusive” right to sell its wares in the retail mall environment.

Similarly, a VLGS must allow for further the options available for the end-user as that is the way that the most amount of traffic is driven to the site. This in turn drives the most interest to the individual Concepts advertised on the sites. Whether an individual Concept can affect a sale is dependent on its sales efforts and the attractiveness of the product. That an individual Concept may ultimately lose a sale to another Concept is simply the “cost” of doing business. If a Concept can purchase a significant amount of traffic to supply sales leads needs, and get a ROI that is greater than the VLGS then it should do so. But for most that is simply not the case. As in the case of the storeowner who is more profitable being a tenant of the retail mall as opposed to a stand-alone retail location, the ROI on leads purchased through a VLGS is greater for the vast majority of Concepts because of the time, cost, and complexity of generating leads on the Internet.

W.C. Garth Snider

Copyright 2009.  All rights reserved.

]]> http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com/blog/the-macro-economics-of-vertical-lead-generation-sites-part-ii-analogizing-vertical-lead-generation-sites-to-retail-shopping-malls/feed http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com/blog/the-macro-economics-of-vertical-lead-generation-sites http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com/blog/the-macro-economics-of-vertical-lead-generation-sites#comments Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:20:00 +0000 Garth http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com/blog/the-macro-economics-of-vertical-lead-generation-sites This blog entry is the first in a series of two blog entries discussing the macro-economics of vertical lead generation sites.

Part I.

An oft-cited criticism of vertical lead generation sites (“VLGS”) is that end-users have the ability to request information on multiple concepts. This, so the argument runs, dilutes the attention making it more difficult for any given lead-desiring concept (“Concept”) to convince the end-user to pick its product over the others for which information was requested. It is hard to argue that such is not the case. For if choice is limited then limited choices will obviously be made. The problem with the argument is not in its probity, it is in its mistaken simplicity and its lack of grounding in reality. A VLGS is nothing more than online information directory. Since the scope and reach of a directory is a function of the amount of revenue the directory can generate, it is unrealistic to expect that a directory limit the interest in, and therefore the information provided by, any one Concept.

A VLGS, like a directory, cannot operate efficiently if the number of Concepts for which information can be requested is limited. Both VLGS and directories are dependant upon generating a deep interest across a broad swath of Concepts. Limiting the number of inquiries that can be made by one end-user degrades the efficiency of the VLGS business model, and will eventually limit the efficacy of the model. No VLGS, nor any business for that matter, can limit its operational efficiency without some form of commensurate revenue increase as a counter-weight and expect to stay in business. To understand why this is the case one must first understand the economic and operational principles behind a VLGS.

A VLGS aggregates traffic for the use and benefit of the paying Concepts which have paid to be listed on the site and/or are paying for leads that are generated by the site. This is primarily accomplished by directing keyword search results toward a single website. One of the advantages of a VLGS is its directory style business model, to wit: it can offset the relatively high cost of purchasing a unit of advertising by diffusing the interest in the site across many paying Concepts. It is this operational efficiency that is degraded when a VLGS limits the interest in paying Concepts.

But the vertical lead generation model is equally as beneficial to the paying Concept as it is to the VLGS because of the time and cost associated with trying to drive traffic in increasingly very competitive marketplaces. The available SERPs on the major search engines is not growing, and in fact can be said to have achieved a certain amount of stasis in many categories. Few are the times when a new website can achieve top level organic placement, let alone top level placement on enough keywords to drive a high volume of traffic. Additionally, the cost of paid traffic continues to increase.

Moreover, one of the realities of online marketing is that there has been too much hype made of the “long-tail.” For consumer driven purchases the majority of traffic is not on branded keywords or obscure keywords but rather a reactively small sub-set of keywords that drive the majority of the traffic. For example, whereas there may be many searches on the word McDonald’s Franchise, a much smaller number of searches will be entered for MacD’s Franchise - even if MacD’s happens to be a subsidiary of McDonald’s and/or viable competitor. Similarly, while there may be quite a few searches on the term “food franchise” there are many fewer searches on the term “hamburger franchise.” While there are still people searching for “hamburger franchises” the opportunity cost of spending money in the relatively slight hope that a sale will result from their search is often times outweighed by the cost of not being included in a directory.

This is where the VLGS true value add proposition is realized. VLGS are adept at sifting through a large amount of traffic in order to provide only the most qualified of leads. It does so, by pooling its resources to get traffic on all relevant terms, as well as terms that are not in the specific industry but are within the general theme of the action being requested. Some of this traffic will not of a sufficient quality to warrant purchasing again i.e., the money will have been wasted. But the purchase of the “wasted” traffic will not destroy the model precisely because the model is built on scaling a great amount of traffic purchases into leads. Whereas an individual Concept may spend through its yearly advertising budget in a month or less were it to attempt to do this on its own and run into similar traffic difficulties, a VLGS can weather the storm and continue to produce quality leads. Moreover, some of the traffic that would need to be purchased to produce the leads would be cost prohibitive to many Concepts in the first instance.

W.C. Garth Snider

Copyright 2009.  All rights reserved.

EVOS ® …A Healthier Fast Food opened its 8^th store today, June 5^th in Roswell, Georgia and the FranchiseOpportunities Network Team was there to celebrate! EVOS® provides an alternative fast food option that offers a menu comprised of antibiotic and hormone free burgers, French fries that are baked in an oven, salads with all natural ingredients and low fat, low cal shakes. In addition to their healthier menu items, their philosophy on packaging and materials is inspiring. All of their supplies have been chosen based on their minimal effect on our planet, just as each ingredient is selected based on their affect on our bodies.

Wanting to welcome not only a valued client to the neighborhood, but also desiring to embrace the positive nature of such a franchise, the staff at FranchiseOpportunities Network set out to make it a memorable day! And was it ever!

A member of the International Franchise Association, EVOS® is a fun, forward thinking, financially rewarding franchise opportunity. With corporate support, operational simplicity and a product that is both in demand and environmentally sound, EVOS® is a great opportunity to make profits, and make a planet proud.

For more information please complete the form and someone from EVOS® will contact you shortly.

]]> http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com/blog/welcome-to-ad-engine/the-franchiseopportunities-network-staff-helps-evos%c2%ae-open-their-newest-unit/feed http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com/blog/franchise-lead-generation-portals/franchise-opportunities-network-generates-its-4-millionth-lead-in-april http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com/blog/franchise-lead-generation-portals/franchise-opportunities-network-generates-its-4-millionth-lead-in-april#comments Fri, 08 May 2009 15:13:43 +0000 Admin http://www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com/?p=65

Franchise Opportunities Network Generates its 4 Millionth Lead in April.

Franchise Opportunities Network f/k/a Ad Engine generated its 4 millionth franchise and small business lead in April. With 4 million leads delivered Franchise Opportunities Network is among the top franchise lead producers operating today.

Atlanta, Georgia (PRWEB), 8, May, 2009– Franchise Opportunities Network announces that in April it surpassed the 4 million mark in leads generated and delivered. www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com . Over the course of its 9-year history the sites that constitute the Franchise Opportunities Network—-FranchiseOpportunities.com, FranchiseForsale.com FoodFranchise.com et al—have delivered more than 4 million leads to small business and franchises.

During this 9-year period Franchise Opportunities Network has delivered franchise leads to such venerable and well-known companies as Arby’s, Subway, Post-Net, and Maaco. It has also delivered leads to such newly emerging franchise powerhouses as Embroid Me, Flip Flop Shops, FiltaFry, and WSI. Few, if any, companies have delivered as many on-line franchise leads to its advertisers, as has the Franchise Opportunities Network.

W.C. Garth Snider, President of the Franchise Opportunities Network, attributed the success of Franchise Opportunity Network to his teams’ uncompromising commitment to quality and its unique blend of business instincts and technical expertise. Mr. Snider stated, “pound for pound there is no better collection of lead generation specialists in the franchise industry today—perhaps even in the lead generation industry. Along with the experience that I bring to the table, I have been fortunate to assemble a lead generation team led by my CMO Matt Biskup and my CTO Salim Notta that has on average more than 10 years of experience in lead generation. “

Mr. Snider added, “generating 4 million leads did not come about without a lot of hard work. We take our trade very seriously and we are always looking for new ways to generate quality leads. Toward that end, we are currently redesigning many of our sites in order to make them more productive and cost-efficient. Our flagship site FranchiseOpportunities.com will be redesigned and re-launched in May. And thus while admittedly ambitious I am looking to generate my next 4 million leads in less time that I did the first.”

For additional information on the news that is the subject of this release (or for a sample, copy or demo), contact Alison Glassman at 770*391*5038 or visit www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com .

About Franchise Opportunities Network:

Franchise Opportunities Network is the largest supplier of on-line franchise and small business leads in the market today. Founded in 2000, Franchise Opportunities Network has been an integral part of the growth of some the best-known franchises and small business in the world. Franchise Opportunities Network maintains both domestic and international websites.

May 8, 2009

Dear Advertiser and Prospective Advertiser:

In the last two years there has been an explosion in the number of sites that produce franchise leads.  With the exception of my sister companies within the Landmark Media family, most sites in the industry are underfunded, understaffed, and produce leads that underwhelm.  

As President and General Counsel of the Franchise Opportunities Network, I am at the helm of the largest franchise lead producing operation in business today.   I am fully invested in the success of the franchise industry.  As such I want to point out a few facts that need to be considered when one is deciding on where to place one’s advertising dollars—now and in the future.

Fact 1: Over the past 8 years, nobody in the franchise lead generation industry has been responsible for delivering more leads than me.    We have generated more than 4 million franchise leads.

Fact 2:  The means and method by which we operate one site is the same by which we operate the other sites in our network.   Our proprietary lead generation techniques are utilized on each of our sites.

Fact 3:  No other franchise lead generation company operating today has as many employees dedicated to lead generation, as does Franchise Opportunities Network.   Stated simply, the size of our company allows me to ensure a higher standard of lead quality than does any other lead generation portal.

Fact 4:  While there may be some slight variation in lead quality and quantity from time to time across the sites in the Franchise Opportunities Network, we pride ouselves on delivering the same type of high quality lead on each of the web sites.  For example, the same team that generated the lead on FranchiseOnline.com generated a lead generated on FranchiseOpportunties.com.  

Fact 5:  We do not discriminate at Franchise Opportunities Network.  Each advertiser on each site gets the same attention from our lead generation team.  We make a concerted effort to get as many leads as to as many advertisers across ALL of my sites as possible. 

Fact 6:  Most franchise lead generation portals get leads from the exact same traffic sources. 80% of the franchise leads generated by all the companies in the industry derive from essentially the same traffic sources.

Fact 7:  It is the process of qualifying the leads once the leads enters the system that distinguishes the lead portals.  I go to great lengths to supply on my sites only the most qualified leads possible.  We use both Targus ©  and our own proprietary lead scrubbing system to make certain that the leads—as well as the sources of the leads– are of the highest quality

The post-recession economy will provide many opportunities for the franchise industry.  We at Franchise Opportunities Network plan to be there with the industry every step of the way.  

Please do not hesitate to give me a call to discuss how we might better serve you and the franchise industry.  

Sincerely,

W.C. Garth Snider
President

FoodFranchise.com Redesigns and Re-Launches Its Popular Lead Generation Site

FoodFranchise.com recently underwent and extensive site redesign.  The new site has an improved functionality as well as an improved look and feel.

Atlanta, Georgia (PRWEB), 6, May, 2009– Franchise Opportunities Network announces the redesign and re-launch of FoodFranchise.com.   www.FoodFranchise.com .   The new design is the first “make-over” the website has had since it inception in 2001.  The team at Franchise Opportunities Network used various sources and conducted many user-generated tests in order to design the new FoodFranchise.com.   Years of studying the operational aspects of its own myriad sites, as well as borrowing best practices from other industries, allowed the Franchise Opportunities Network team to design a site that is both functionally and aesthetically superior to the old version. 

W.C. Garth Snider, President of the Franchise Opportunities Network, stated: “FoodFranchise.com is and has been the premier franchise lead generation web portal specifically designed for food franchises.   And while FoodFranchise.com was always one of the best indexed sites in the franchise lead generation marketplace, the site design had not kept up with the demand for the product.  Consequently, I thought it was time to redesign the site using the latest technology and best lead generation practices at our disposal.”

 “The new site design is a vast improvement over the old site,” Garth Snider continued. “The new website has a look and feel that is consistent with the uniquely American concept of the food franchise industry.   From an operational standpoint, the site is much improved as well.  Over the last 5 years I have been able to try out many different lead generation processes and systems on our multiple sites.  I took my experience with the other sites in the Franchise Opportunities Network and plowed that knowledge into the new FoodFranchise.com site.  I also looked to how other lead generation sites in different verticals operated.  I have no doubt that our new design will provide a better user experience and that will, in turn, provide even more qualified leads.”

For additional information on the news that is the subject of this release (or for a sample, copy or demo), contact Alison Glassman at 770*391*5038 or visit www.FoodFranchise.com .

About FoodFranchise.com:

FoodFranchise.com is a part of the Franchise Opportunities Network.  www.franchiseopportunitiesnetwork.com.  Since its inception FoodFranchise.com has delivered more than 350,000 food related leads.  FoodFranchise.com has been an integral part of the growth of some the best-known food franchises in the world. 

–It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality.   John Galt.

What do the franchise portals owe to the prospective franchisee?   Perhaps the more important question is the corollary to this query and that is: what do the franchise portals owe to the franchise industry in general. Are the portals merely an conduit of information?   It is difficult to fashion a legal argument that the portals have any obligation to investigate which franchises are sound.  It is even more difficult to make and ethics based argument that somehow the portals have an obligation to weed out the bad franchises from the good ones.  But what about from a moral perspective?   And by moral perspective I mean the objective good in the striving for and ascending to one’s full potential in business.

 Trust is the hallmark of our capitalist system.   What we have today with the collapse of the financial markets is a flatlining of trust in our system.   Expand that notion to franchise lead generation portals.   Do the portals have an obligation to protect the franchise industry’s perception of trustworthiness?    Trust is lacking today in our market place.   The portals have been the conduit through which all manner of poorly thought out franchise have been advertised.  With that said, one can easily make the argument that the portals are no different than any other form of advertisement like a magazine or newspaper.   And such an argument would be right on the observation of the superficial facts but miss entirely the ultimate reality that lies just under the surface.  

The portals are the partners of the franchise industry.  There exists a symbiotic relationship between the portals and the franchise industry–even if the industry (as embodied by the IFA) are loathe to recognize it.  As such the franchise portals must do more in screening out the franchises that will do nothing but harm the industry as a whole.   A teleological perspective needs to be the driving force behind the portals long range strategic planing.  The portals must resist the myopia of looking only to the short-term goals of next month revenues.   

  Without reason a code of morals becomes diaphanous.  No business can long succeed without a code of morals–morality from the traditional religious sense, as well as objectivist sense posited above.  The portals must actively practice the morality of self-preservation precisely becasue it is the only reasonable thing to do.  The portals must take the long view because so few in the industry currently do.  Irrationality held sway over the franchise industry and, by extension, the franchise portals for the last 3-4 years.   It is time for reason and good judgement to become preeminent in the franchise lead generation industry again.  It is good business, and it is moral.

The shibboleth that the franchise industry is recession-proof has been torn asunder.   Very well.  It was an unreasonable and untenable belief to begin with.   And this belief compelled many in the industry to go against their morality of self-preservation.  The portals now have in their power the ability to assure the continued growth of franchising into the 21st century.    Will they rise to the occasion?  Will they do that which advances the morality of self-preservation?   Or will they unreasonably look only to next month’s revenue?   The choice is theirs.  The choice is ours.

W.C. Garth Snider

The pessimism and fear that has settled in over the larger economy is now increasingly palpable in the franchise community. The unbridled optimism of the last seven years has in the past seven months changed to an unbridled pessimism. The one constant between the two seemingly polar states is that both are and were unrealistic.

The economy was never truly as strong as it appeared back in 2006 and 2007 and is not nearly as weak as some believe to be today in 2009. Over the course of the next year our economy will in the language of statisticians revert to the mean. Stated differently, and using a more metaphysical description of the state of our national affairs, our economy (and our economic behavior) will move to what Aristotle called the golden mean. The golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency.

What does any of this have to do with franchising one might ask? Apart from the ineluctable fact that franchising is inextricably bound to the larger economy, franchisors need to be the engine that leads the economy out of the forest of gloom. In order to do this, however, t he franchise industry must first accept that “that was then, this now”. Like the larger economy the supply of cheap money enticed franchisors and franchisee alike into business decisions that were not sound. The faster the franchise industry fully accepts that it is not “recession proof” as some had claimed, and that it too was drunk on the supply of cheap money the faster the US economy will turn around.

The composition of the franchise industry has been forever altered. But that is by no means a negative. As we find our collective footing in the new economy, a return to the golden mean will have the effect of strengthening the franchisors with solid business plans.  Strong management teams–both on the franchisor and franchisee level–will be at the forefront of the economic recovery.

Americans are now more than ever looking to take their future into their own hands. It is time for the franchise industry to lead by example. It is time for the franchising industry to demonstrate to America what financial independence looks like. It is time for the franchise industry to re-infect our national psyche with the one emotion that the franchise industry has the most of and the larger economy is most lacking in right now: optimism.

That which I state above is not unprecedented and is not “pie in the sky” optimism.  There is historical precedence to prove that even in seemingly dark economic periods starting a business—and specifically starting a franchised business—can succeed. Howard Johnson’s is that example.

A World War I veteran with only a grammar-school education, Howard Dearing Johnson started out as a salesman for his father, a Boston cigar jobber. As smokers increasingly turned to cigarettes, however, the business fell into debt and, after his father died, Johnson closed it. Looking for a better enterprise, he bought a store selling candy, newspapers, and patent medicines in Wollaston, a Boston suburb, in 1925 for $500 he borrowed, picking up also its debts of at least $28,000. Johnson revived the store’s moribund soda fountain and, seeking a quality product that would bear his name, introduced chocolate ice cream with a “secret” formula: a butterfat content almost twice the standard. It proved a hit, so he added other flavors and opened a beachfront stand where he sold $60,000 worth of ice-cream cones in a single summer. By 1928, his gross sales of ice cream had risen to $240,000.

When Johnson opened his first restaurant, in neighboring Quincy in 1929, he made fried clams and broiled swordfish the specialties and also included homemade baked beans, brown bread, and pastries. However, he was frustrated in his desire to expand by lack of capital before 1935, when he persuaded an acquaintance to open a restaurant in Orleans, on Cape Cod, and sell his ice cream under a franchise. By the following summer, there were four Howard Johnson franchised restaurants, called “Howard Johnson’s,” and 13 small Johnson-owned roadside stands being converted into restaurants. By the end of the year, 39 more franchised restaurants had been opened.

Howard Johnson’s phenomenal growth was based on the application of two relatively new and untried concepts. Its founder, unable to obtain loans from bankers, was a pioneer in the franchising field. Licensees, rather than the chain, bore the start-up costs. These included an initiation fee paid to the company, which then made more money by selling food and other supplies to the licensees. In addition, Howard Johnson foresaw that the growing popularity of the automobile would send millions of hungry Americans out on the road.

By the end of 1939, there were 107 Howard Johnsons along the eastern seaboard and as far south as Florida, mostly along highways. Gross receipts came to $10.5 million and profit to $207,000. See http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Howard-Johnson-International-Inc-Company-History.html

W.C. Garth Snider