Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2012 | Page 18

Grow Market Lead

By Kerry Pipes

EmpireBuilders.tv
Makes Online Debut
Multi-unit franchisees tell their
stories in new video series

B

urton W. Folsom uncovered
something revolutionary
about capitalism in 19th
century America. And in his
books, he debunks commonly held views
about the role of capitalism in the social
developments of the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age.
Nowhere does Folsom make his case
more clearly than in his 1998 book, Empire Builders: How Michigan Entrepreneurs
Helped Make America Great. In this book,
he wrote about a number of great business leaders who made their state and
nation into a great economic power by
the end of the 1800s.
What does any of this have to do with
franchising? Plenty. Folsom’s
understanding of the critical
importance of entrepreneurs and
how they affect their cultures
helped frame the development
of EmpireBuilders.tv, Franchise
Update Media Group’s new online video series of interviews
with successful multi-unit and
multi-brand franchisees.
“Folsom focused on a number
of great business leaders who,
through their failures and successes,
made their state and nation into a great
economic power by the end of the 19th
century,” says Therese Thilgen, CEO of
Franchise Update Media Group.
“The visionary entrepreneurs in the
book—John Jacob Astor, Herbert Dow,
and Will Kellogg—produced tens of thousands of jobs. They built up Michigan’s
economy when many of the early leaders
of the nation thought Michigan would

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Franchiseupdate Iss u e III, 2 0 1 2

never amount to anything,” she says.
“Then it hit me that franchisors—and
in particular the multi-unit franchisees
who have it all on the line—are today’s
Empire Builders.”
Thilgen says the goal of EmpireBuilders.tv is to showcase the lessons
learned and the personal stories of the
multi-unit franchisees who have taken
huge risks, and failed and overcome repeatedly—and show the way to success
for the rest of us. Thus was born the
idea to create EmpireBuilders.tv as a
“three-dimensional extension” of what
Multi-Unit Franchisee magazine has been
doing in print with its profiles of multiunit operators since 2004.

The online videos are divided into
short segments focused on a specific
topic or question, such as why these individuals chose franchising, what drives
them, their leadership philosophies,
how they measure growth, their biggest and smartest mistakes, even what
they do for fun.
Key franchising players such as Gary
Grace, Ted Torres, Aziz Hashim, John
Metz, Ricky Warman, and Charles
Smithgall were some of the first to be
interviewed. Their stories are powerful,
poignant, inspirational, and sometimes
funny. Most clock in at 2 or 3 minutes.
They are no-nonsense, quick looks into
the worlds of these top operators.
Supercuts franchisee Gary Grace
talks about becoming a franchisee in
1980 with a single salon. Over 31 years,
he’s opened 135, beginning in southern
California and extending to New York
and Hawaii.
John Metz discusses his first experience with franchising, when he bought
a Howard Johnson’s property with a restaurant that he planned to tear down. As
he says in one of the videos, “I learned
that franchising was a much better way
to go than trying to be independent.” Since then, he’s also
become a franchisor.
Aziz Hashim speaks candidly
about his procedures for evaluating potential new brands. “We
are always looking for brands
that meet our criteria. Every
year we do a very robust business
plan and decide which brands
would work for us. Then we go