Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue I, 2013 | Page 8

Chairman’
sNote
BY SEAN FALK

One Conference for All

W

hen I started in franchising more
than 14 years ago, the “normal”
at that time was to open a location, work it, and be successful. If
you wanted to open multiple locations in multiple
cities or states, you were kind of abnormal, or on
the fringes of a system. Today, there is a higher expectation: that you’re going to come in and be a
multi-unit owner right from the
start. And with that, come some
challenges.
Most franchise systems have
franchisees who have already
figured out how to operate
the business model they have
in place. Franchisors have operations manuals, site selection
committees that help you find a good location,
and marketing campaigns that help you be successful. The one thing they don’t have is a process
to teach and train you about multi-unit ownership. That’s where the Multi-Unit Franchising
Conference really helps fill the void.
There are two scenarios for franchisees considering multi-unit ownership as a way to diversify
their holdings: 1) adding more units of their current brand, or 2) adding a new brand, or brands,
something more and more owners are considering.
In the first scenario, the franchisor can at least
come up with a curriculum or a mentorship program that allows a franchisee to see best practices
from multi-unit operators in their system. The
franchisor also can extrapolate when the multi-unit
owner can expect to need administrative, operational, or regional support based on the complexity of the business model they have in place. In the
second scenario, unless the franchisor has several
brands of their own, they are (understandably) of
little help to franchisees looking to add new brands.
Regardless of the action (or inaction) of the
franchisor, the Multi-Unit Franchising Confer-

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Multi-Unit Franchisee Is s ue I, 2013

ence can satisfy both needs, offering programs
that address both multi-unit ownership within one
brand and multi-brand ownership involving several franchisors.
This conference is completely focused on the
needs of multi-unit franchisees. That’s why attending each year is so important to me. The networking at this event is incredible. The peer-to-peer
contact with other multi-unit franchisees is invaluable. You will receive so much—in both resources
and education—you can’t possibly learn on your
own while you are busy running your business.
And the content the conference has to offer is
premium: no other conference in the nation covers this type and range of content. The Advisory
Board, composed of multi-unit franchisees, spends
a lot of time creating a conference that will be most
valuable to multi-unit operators. Some of the content will help you understand how you need to set
up your organization, your back room, and your
support to be able to grow from 1 to 5 stores, from
5 stores to 15, or from 20 to 100.
We have all levels of franchisees there. I am a
12-unit operator, but we have some franchisees
starting out with just a couple of units, and we have
some with several hundred locations. So there’s the
knowledge base there for wherever you are in the
spectrum of ownership. As a result of all this, attendance at the conference has been expanding for the
past 10 years, even during the deep recession we
just came through.
So I am really looking forward to seeing all of
you at this year’s conference. Come to Caesars
Palace in Las Vegas at the end of March and learn
great things. It truly is a one-of-a-kind event that I
continue to find invaluable year after year.

Sean Falk