�鶹��

Say your small business is doing well. Your revenue is reliable, and your profits are impressive. Your staff runs like a well-oiled machine. You have glowing Google reviews. It feels like time to expand.

The question is: How? One great option might be to franchise. But how do you know whether franchising is the right choice for you and your business at this moment in its evolution? To help you decide, �鶹�� polled 15 high-achieving franchisors about what they did right, what they did wrong, and what they learned along the way.

Here are their eight tips for success.

Image Credit: Zohar Lazar

---

1. Think of a franchise not as a great concept, but a great system.

“One of my biggest early missteps was assuming that what was obvious to me would be obvious to everyone else,” says Michael Browning, Jr., founder of Unleashed Brands, which has over 1,600 locations across its portfolio of franchises centered on childhood education and play. “As founders, we carry a lot of the business in our heads. We know how things should look, how the experience should feel, and how decisions should be made. But when you start franchising, that intuition must be translated into systems. Early on, for us, too much was implied and not enough was documented. That created inconsistency quickly.”

Browning has developed a simple test to see whether a founder is ready to make the jump to franchisor: “Can someone else deliver the same customer experience, culture, and financial performance without you standing in the building every day? If the answer is yes, you may be ready to franchise. If the answer is no, keep building the system. Franchising isn’t magic. It’s multiplication.”

Sam Ballas, founder of East Coast Wings + Grill, a family-dining franchise, agrees. “Believing your concept can franchise and being fully prepared to franchise are two very different things,” he says. Soon after Ballas began franchising in 2002, he decided they needed to pause for a reset. “We simply didn’t put enough energy into standardization on the front end. Recipes, sourcing, execution, consistency — all of those things become exponentially more important once you begin scaling.” Today, the brand has more than 40 locations open or in development.

The list of what franchisors need in place before starting to franchise is long: systems for training, marketing, site selection, build-out support, project management, vendors, and more. Everything needs to be documented, and easy for others to understand. Anything that’s missing can become a problem. “Franchising magnifies whatever already exists in your business,” says Tim Dougherty, founder of the tech-wellness company Project LeanNation, which has 34 locations open and another 47 in development. 

“If you don’t consistently hold the system accountable,” Dougherty says, “that differentiator that makes the brand special slowly erodes.”

2. Before you start, dial in the system at multiple locations.

How can a franchisor-to-be know if their system is ready? Test it over and over before bringing anyone else on. “If your first location is successful, it’s hard to know if you got lucky or if you have something that can scale,” says Jason Olsen, founder of the salon-suite franchise Image Studios. “A second location helps prove your thesis out, and a successful third location validates that you have a system with the ability to scale further.”

When he first began expanding Image, Olsen built five locations in five years. A decade after starting to franchise, Image now has 135 franchises in 29 states. “Each location is a learning opportunity to improve upon any mistakes made with the previous location, test out new strategies, and refine your operating system before you venture into franchising,” Olsen says. Plus, having proof that your system really does work shows franchisees that it’s worth the royalty fee. 

Even after you begin franchising, it’s important to take your time scaling up. “When you see strong interest in a franchise concept, the instinct is to move quickly,” says Mike Weinberger of Replay Sports Cards, which has four locations after starting to franchise in 2024. “But we learned that sustainable growth requires careful pacing.” Staying slow but steady gives early franchisees the chance to offer feedback about what is and isn’t working.

“Instead of treating the system as something static, we treated it as something that evolves through real-world experience,” says Weinberger. “We refined training materials, clarified operational standards, and strengthened communication between locations. That process helped us turn early friction points into improvements that benefit the entire network.”

3. Recognize that being a franchisor is an entirely new job.

For many new franchisors, it comes as a surprise how different the work is from being a business owner. “When you run a single store, your focus is on guests, products, and the day-to-day experience inside the shop,” say Amy Freeman and Penny Rehling, founders of The Spice & Tea Exchange, which began franchising in 2008 and now has nearly 100 retail locations. “When you launch a franchise system, your focus shifts to building the infrastructure that allows other entrepreneurs to succeed.” 

This can require a change in mentality, and the confidence to relinquish control over the small things. “When you run your own location, you can make quick decisions and adjust on the fly,” says Weinberger. “As a franchisor, you are guiding other business owners, each with their own perspective and market dynamics. That requires patience and a willingness to listen as much as you advise.” You’re no longer an “operator,” he explains; you’re a “coach.”

Peter Roberts is a cofounder of landscape management company ManageMowed, which has more than 30 franchise locations, and he says, “One of the biggest differences I’ve learned is that franchise owners aren’t employees. They’re independent business owners. That changes how you lead, how you support them, and how you build the system.”

4. Pick your people carefully.

Becoming a franchisor also requires adding new sources of support. “When we launched, our team was strong in manufacturing and R&D, which gave us a solid product foundation,” says Mike Meursing, founder of GarageExperts, a garage makeover franchise with 107 locations. “But bridging the gap between great products and a fully supported franchise system required a different kind of expertise.”

So GarageExperts invested in IT and franchise support, including coaching franchisees on how to build and run their businesses. “It took time to find the right people,” says Meursing, “but once we did, the impact on our franchisees was undeniable.”

Tamara Galinsky, who in 2022 franchised JetSet Pilates, which now has more than 50 studios, has discovered what she calls “the paramount importance of placing the absolute right people in the right roles — those who not only have the skills but share the passion and vision — and the need to pivot swiftly when someone or something isn’t the right fit. Fast decisions on personnel and processes prevented small issues from becoming systemic problems and allowed us to maintain momentum.”

An essential part of this equation is also, of course, selecting the right franchisees. “When we first entered the franchising world, we were fortunate to start off as a ‘hot brand,’” says Derek Shewmon, cofounder of Homestretch, which helps prepare homes for sale. “There were several moments where we felt external pressure to accept candidates who simply didn’t meet our internal standards.” With 76 locations just three years into franchising, Shewmon is glad the brand was picky about its hires and focused not on the year ahead, but a decade from now. “We stood our ground and clearly defined a candidate profile that aligned with our values of innovation, exceptional service, and leadership. If we had been less selective, we would be in a much worse position today.”

Image Credit: Zohar Lazar

---

5. Focus on training from the beginning.

Even the best franchisee candidates need to be taught well in order to succeed. How a brand does this is one of the first and biggest questions a franchisor must answer, says Dougherty of Project LeanNation. “If you wait to develop training until problems appear, you spend a lot of time trying to correct behaviors that are already ingrained,” he explains. “Training needs to exist before scale.”

This can be an adjustment for franchisors used to teaching on the job. “When you run corporate stores, you can walk into the kitchen and fix a problem immediately,” says Denise Tran, founder of Bun Mee, a five-location fast-casual franchise that specializes in banh mi sandwiches. But a franchisor has to figure out how much a franchisee needs to know in order to operate on their own. “We learned that training couldn’t just be a few weeks of shadowing at a store,” says Tran. “We had to build a structured program that covered everything: food execution, labor management, hospitality standards, and brand stewardship.”

Some franchisors believe it is best to risk overinvesting in training in the beginning. “Your first 10 franchisees decide whether you will make it or not,” says Alex Filipuk of the home-renovation franchise Ideal Siding. “The amount of work we did to help our first franchisees succeed was unreasonable and did not make sense from a financial point of view, but we overdelivered, and that helped us grow to almost 100 locations now.”

It can also be useful to know that different franchisees will need different kinds of training as their businesses grow. Roberts of ManageMowed has developed a system that splits franchise owners up into three tiers, determined by their amount of revenue. “Each stage requires a different level of support, coaching, and focus,” he says. “That structure has helped owners understand what stage they’re in and what it takes to move to the next level.”

6. Prepare a real estate process.

Choosing the right locations has an outsize impact on how successfully a franchise progresses. “We learned early on how critical site selection is, and how easy it is to underestimate that step,” says Kristen Denzer, founder of Tierra Encantada, an early-education franchise focused on immersion in Spanish, with almost 30 locations. “What surprised us was how long it can take to secure a site. Zoning, licensing requirements, and building specifications can slow things down, so if franchisees don’t start looking quickly and stay consistent with it, the timeline can slip by a year or more.” 

Galinsky of JetSet Pilates had experience in commercial real estate, so when she began franchising, she drove around herself searching for both a good deal and good energy. “It worked well in the early stages, but as interest exploded nationwide, it quickly became clear I couldn’t clone myself across multiple states,” she says. 

“This risked slowing momentum and inconsistent quality in location choices.”

Galinsky realized she needed others wholly devoted to securing and constructing sites, so she brought on a head of real estate. “That hire, along with building out a dedicated real estate team, transformed our process into a proactive, efficient engine that now supports consistent, high-caliber openings across the country,” she says. 

7. Have more cash than you think you’ll need.

“Franchising isn’t cheap,” says Roberts. “There are legal costs, building your Franchise Disclosure Document, franchise agreements, and making sure everything is structured correctly to protect both you and your franchisees.” This is compounded by the fact that returns from franchising are not always immediate. “If you are a brick-and-mortar franchise, it can take 12 to 18 months after a new franchisee signs on before they are open for business,” says Olsen of Image Studios. “As a result, your royalty streams are heavily delayed. Therefore, new franchisors must be adequately capitalized in order to survive the time it takes to start generating royalty revenue.” Olsen recommends that founders have between $500K and $1 million on hand before they begin to franchise.

Paul Flick began franchising Premium Service Brands in 2006, right before the shock of the Great Recession in 2008.

 “At the time, we were significantly undercapitalized to weather those types of economic headwinds,” he says. Today, the company oversees a portfolio of nine home-service brands with more than 400 locations open and more in development. But that early struggle taught him how important a franchisor’s solvency is to ensuring the whole system’s success. “[For example,] missing payroll or not paying bills directly hurts the franchise partners you have committed to supporting,” he says.

A franchisor should also think of their franchisees’ finances — particularly where they will find their first loans. “I had to spend a lot of time talking to different lenders while building some great relationships with a few key banks that got comfortable with our business model and unit economics,” says Olsen. “Having financing in place is an absolute must for any brand with a brick-and-mortar buildout. You will only grow as fast as you can secure financing partners for your franchisees to use. Having more leverage with a banking partner also helps franchisees preserve capital to scale more locations over time.”

8. Franchisees are putting their dreams in your hands, so take care of them.

When Cathy Deano first started franchising Painting with a Twist, the paint-and-sip franchise with more than 200 studios open or in development, a woman came to the business’s Discovery Day and said she planned to open a franchise by using her credit card. “That’s when I realized people were willing to sacrifice almost anything to buy the American dream of owning their own business,” says Deano. “When they put their trust in you, it’s a huge responsibility. Your franchisees are taking a chance on your dream. You have to provide the support to make them as successful as possible.”

When a franchisee signs up, they become not only a franchisor’s priority, but also their inspiration, says Meursing of GarageExperts. “We’ve been a franchisor for nearly 20 years, and I still wake up at 3 a.m. with new ideas for the business,” he says. “That energy comes from knowing that this franchise is a vehicle for building people’s futures. One business model, creating opportunity across dozens of communities.”

Franchisors have found that if they include the success of others in their ambition, it can help them build an even better brand. “It won’t be easy,” says Meursing, “but if you’re driven by something bigger than yourself, that will carry you through. Find that thing, and you’ll be unstoppable.”

This kind of expansion can lead to a powerful realization. “One thing I underestimated was the weight of stewardship,” says Browning of Unleashed Brands. 

“When someone becomes a franchisee, they’re not just buying a concept. Many are leaving careers, investing their life savings, and committing their family’s future to your brand. Once you understand that, the relationship changes. You’re not simply growing a company. You are carrying someone else’s dream alongside your own.”