January 2017 | Business View Magazine

26 27 our smart device repair, buy, sell, and trade franchise.”Today,UFG has close to 1,500 franchise units in over 80 countries. Malmuth explains that, except for Signarama and Embroid- Me, all of UFG’s other franchise operations were acquired. “For example, Transworld Business Advisors has been around almost 40 years within the state of Florida. And we did a lot of business with them. So, it made sense to partner with them to franchise that brand outside of Florida,”he says. “Jon Smith Subs has been only in Palm Beach County,where we’re headquartered, for about 30 years. They got to the point where they had nine or ten loca- tions in South Florida and all of us at the corporate office had been eating at their restaurants for years. Again, it made sense for us to connect the dots with them.” What all of the new companies that UFG bought or partnered with had in common was their relationship with its consultancy division. “They all had a similar starting point which was Accurate UNITED FRANCHISE GROUP 30 Years in business 8 brands 80+ Countries 1,400+ Locations Franchising Incorporated, a franchise consultan- cy that we have as part of the United Franchise Group umbrella. It’s not a franchised brand–it’s a division of our organization,where we work with an existing company that is very familiar with the franchising world. They’ll hire us to con- sult with them to build their program and maybe utilize some of our systems. The cream rises to the top and those brands become part of our organization.”UFG continues to look for, and add, fresh brands from emerging industries. Malmuth says that while there are many other franchise companies that have multiple brands, they normally tend to concentrate on a single industry. “For example, they may be all automo- tive; they might be all food and beverage,” he states. “There are also one or two organizations out there that are multi-branded with different industries, but the big, key difference between us and all of them is that we’re a one-stop-shop, all-under-one-roof type of organization. We have developed a strong infrastructure to support the franchisee in every capacity. For example, for our retail brands that require some sort of a build-out,we have the real estate and construc- Ray Titus and Ben Carson