Business View Magazine - March 2016

56 Business View Magazine - April 2016 Business View Magazine - April 2016 57 come from? “From the franchise companies buying their research from us. And also for those companies that are the best of the best, we do offer marketing services to help promote their brand.” How do you reach out these companies? How do they know about you? “Primarily through industry events. There’s an industry association – the International Franchise Association - of which many franchise companies are members, and we do a lot of networking at those and other fran- chise events. We do lots of outbound marketing, but many franchise companies also see the reports we put out, so there’s a lot of inbound traffic, as well. We’re lucky to work with many of the top companies in fran- chising, and these award-winning brands are proud of their Franchise Business Review rankings and awards. Word gets around.” And people visit your website, too, I imagine. “The website is primarily focused on content for fran- chisee candidates – people who are thinking about buying a franchise, but there are resources there for franchise companies, as well.” How many employees do you have? “We’re small; we’re only a dozen people.” Is there a typical client? You say you service franchi- sees, potential franchisees, and franchisors. “Our primary client is the franchisor. We obviously do a lot of research with franchisees, and a lot of candi- dates come to us for our franchise guides and reports, but those are all free of charge. So, it’s the franchi- sors that provide our revenue. We work with many of the biggest companies in franchising – many house- hold names that everyone knows. But the vast major- ity of franchise companies are smaller, growth brands. We’ve have clients that have thousands of locations across the globe, and we have clients that are emerg- ing brands with just a handful of locations. The fran- chise giants like Subway, McDonald’s or Century 21, while they represent the majority of the total franchise locations in the U.S., only represent a small fraction of the total number of franchise opportunities in the marketplace today. The average franchise company is much smaller, with 100 – 200 locations.” Are there any other companies that do what you do? “There are a couple of small direct competitors out there, but we consider anyone that provides any kind of franchise information to be a competitor – some- body like Entrepreneur Magazine which does its an- nual ‘Franchise 500,’ or the many franchise websites out there. There are probably a hundred different fran- chise websites and directories, many of which offer some sort of “top franchise” ranking. Almost all these rankings are complete rubbish. Their rankings are sim- ply a pay-to-play advertising model, or based on the size and/or perceived success of the franchise com- pany. “But the size of the brand really tells you nothing about the success of their franchisees, or how happy they are with their franchise business, or if they are actually achieving their goals and making some money. That’s something that is unique in what Franchise Business Review provides, because there are lots of very large brands in the franchise world that appear to be suc- cessful, but they churn through lots and lots of fran- chisees. If you think of XYZ franchise that sits on the corner of Main Street – that business may be there for ten or fifteen years and you think, ‘Oh, it must be very successful; it’s been there a long time.’ But what you don’t know is that it may have churned through three or four different franchisees over that time frame and the corporation just resold it to somebody else who lost their shirt in the business, and then somebody else came along, bought it again, and tried, and it failed over and over again. But the location stays open because it’s a new owner that comes in. So, just be- cause a business has been around for a long time and a brand is large and appears to be successful, doesn’t necessarily mean that the franchisees are successful. “Franchise Business Review is the only company that ranks franchise opportunities based on the actual ex- periences and success of the franchisees. These are the people that have invested their life savings into their franchise business and have everything on the line – they are the real franchise experts!” Is there anything that you’ve done recently or plan- ning for the near-term future that will impact the way you do business?