94 Business View - December 2015
decided to buy Color Me Mine, from Koo Koo Roo, him-
self, in 1995, and a few years later, he began franchising
stores in earnest. “As soon as an owner who was involved
in the schools, involved in the community got involved in
the business, the sales turned around – instantly,” he
states. “And we’ve never looked back. We’ve been a pure
franchise company for the last 17 years.” (Pure franchis-
ing provides franchisees with a complete business format
including license for a trade name, the product or service
to be marketed, the physical plant, methods of operation,
a marketing strategy plan, a quality control process, and
so on.)
Mooslin discovered another significant facet of the Color
Me Mine model a decade or so into his ownership of the
business. “When the recession hit, we were worried,” he
admits. “We’re a high ticket item. But an interesting thing
happened: sales started climbing. I tried to figure out why
and I realized that during the recession years, families
weren’t traveling. They were doing ‘staycations.’ They were
looking for entertainment close to home. And so, we were
recipients of people who would have travelled for their en-
tertainment, but were now looking for entertainment in
their communities.
The down side for his business during that same time was
that the banks weren’t lending, so his franchise leads be-
gan drying up. However, Mooslin also noticed that many
stores were closing and that shopping centers were losing
tenants. He decided the time was right to get some financ-
ing together which would allow him to start building some
company stores at reduced rent prices in those now-emp-
ty venues. “We’ll get them running, then we’ll re-sell them
as franchises,” he remembers thinking. “This worked so
well, that we continue to do it, today,” he adds. “So, we
always keep an inventory of company stores that are all
available for sale. And every year, it’s a different mix of six
to eight stores. So, we have two ways of franchising – one
is to sell a pure franchise, or someone can buy one of our
company stores that’s already going. And that has been a
tremendous way to keep our growth going.”
Color Me Mine has maintained a steady opening rate of
about ten to twelve stores a year for the last 15 years,
even though the company does no advertising to solicit its
franchisees - all store sales come from word-of-mouth or
from people visiting a store. “Our target customer is also
our target franchisee,” Mooslin says. “They come in, they
fall in love with it and they say ‘I have to have one of these
FRANCHISE
