Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue III, 2013 | Page 63

Peter Guber, keynoter
Franchising Cares—a lot!

For the past decade, the conference has
supported the Little Rock Foundation,
dedicated to improving the lives of the
blind and visually impaired from early
childhood through adulthood. This year,
the conference offered something more.
Gary Gardner, chairman of Franchise
Update Media Group, took the stage to
introduce Franchising Cares, a new franchise charitable giving initiative. As chair,
Falk was encouraged to name a charitable
organization to add as a beneficiary of this
year’s fundraising efforts. He chose the
Semper Fi Fund, which provides financial
assistance to wounded Marines and their
families as they recover.
Gardner said the previous day’s charity golf tournament raised almost $5,000.
The conference also featured its regular
Silent Auction, with more than $46,000
worth of items donated this year. And
Thursday night’s Chairman’s Dinner
raised an additional $15,000, boosting
total charitable donations at the conference to about $65,000.
Day 1: Annnnd they’re off!

Wednesday morning’s general session
kicked off with a keynote from Hollywood
and sports mogul Peter Guber. The former
studio chief at Columbia Pictures and cochair of Casablanca Records today heads up
Mandalay Entertainment. The fast-paced
talk by the author of New York Times number-one bestseller “Tell To Win” focused
on the importance of “reaching your customers’ hearts,” and he spoke like a man
who has learned how to do just that. He
gave the crowd several tips for identifying
what their customers are looking for—and,

David Akers

more important, how to give it to them.
The “secret sauce of success,” he told
attendees, is “your innate ability to move
other people to action.” And while each
person has a different call to action, the
most effective way he’s found to reach
people is through the power of narrative.
“I’m a storyteller—that’s the secret
sauce,” said Guber, 71, a lesson he learned
only in what he described as “the third act”
of his life. We’re all emotional creatures,
he said, and a good story has the power to
“emotionalize” the audience you’re trying to reach, whether in movies, sports,
or franchising. “You want people to feel it,”
he said. “That’s the way we’re wired. Hits
are born in the heart—not the head, and
not the wallet.”
Guber, who is involved in the food
business at his sports arenas as co-owner
of the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Dodgers, had some relevant advice
for the audience. Answering his own question about how he sells out games at his
arenas, he said, “It’s not the food, it’s the
experience.” He has the players meet the
fans when they come in, and he focuses on
perfecting each moment of a customer’s
visit. “At a restaurant, every detail counts;
the total experience counts,” he said, adding that for Wolfgang Puck, every night is
opening night.
Guber also cautioned against over-reliance on digital technology—something
he knows plenty about as a movie industry
executive and producer. “You have to move
people to action, and digital technology
will not do it. Don’t surrender your humanness to digital technology. You will
lose over time.”
Speaking of his own remarkable ca-

reer of successes and failures, Guber said,
“Success is the ability to go from failure to
failure without losing your enthusiasm,”
adding, “Success and failure are handmaidens on the journey.” To illustrate, he talked
about Michael Jordan, one of the greatest
basketball players ever, emphasizing the
fact that Jordan missed 26 game-winning
shots—among the 9,000 he missed—during his career.
Affordable Care Act

Next on the agenda was an in-depth session on the Affordable Care Act. Panelists
included Jeff Lungren, director of congressional and public affairs for the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce; Christy Williams,
COO of the National Association Management Group; and Mike Kahley, senior
vice president of the Lockton Companies,
which provides insurance, benefits, and
risk management services. The panelists
explained various aspects of the law as
it stands today, how and when it will be
implemented, the upsides and downsides
of different responses to the “play or pay”
option, and the effects the act will have on
franchisees, depending on how the regulations are eventually written.
The panel also included David Barr,
chair of PMTD Restaurants, which operates 23 restaurants. He presented different
scenarios he’s been exploring for his 412
employees (109 full-time, 303 part-time).
In one scenario, the act’s regulations would
have cost him $750,000 annually. After
studying different scenarios, he managed to
reduce his initial estimates of what the act
would cost him from $750,000 to $444,000;
and in an ideal scenario, where employees
don’t sign up because they went on their

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