88 Business View - July 2015
Petersen maintains that the company is very selective
in the franchise process and that “fit” is very impor-
tant. (Corporate doesn’t have to go out and market ter-
ritories to find franchise leads - it simply has to react
to the franchise leads that come into its Vacaville, Cali-
fornia office, every day.) “We’ll spend several weeks
learning about a local marketplace, real estate, loca-
tion, the malls, the shopping centers, availability, sales,
etc. Then we’ll fly out to meet [a prospect] face to face.
We’ll spend an entire day with our franchise prospect,
educating him or her about the marketplace, getting to
know each other very well before we’ll come back and
award a franchise.” And while it’s true that most Apri-
cot Lane franchisees are women, some stores are run
by husband and wife teams, and there are several that
are operated by moms and daughters. Over half of the
company’s franchisees operate more than one store.
Is it necessary to have a fashion background in order
to earn the privilege of joining the Apricot Lane brand?
“We certainly like a sense of fashion; we also want
an active franchisee that’s involved in the day-to-day
business.” But there’s another important aspect of the
Apricot Lane ethos that’s important to the company’s
founder. “We want Apricot Lane franchisees to give
back to the community.”
Petersen, himself, takes community participation
very seriously. As a national brand, the company has
aligned itself publicly with the campaign to end human
trafficking via its relationship with 3 Strands Global, a
non-profit organization dedicated to that worthy cause.
What does Petersen foresee for his brand in upcoming
years? “We’re on track to grow at 20 to 25 stores per
year. We don’t want to grow faster than we can sup-
port. What we’re focused on right now is the efficien-
cies, staying up on social media, and marketing, and
increasing store sales, increasing margins, evaluating
new technology all of which supports our franchisees.
Our success relies on the success of our franchisees,
so a big part of our support and operations is to pro-
FRANCHISE
