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112 113 the maintenance side of the company: “We do a lot of servicing, refurbishing, and painting of trucks over the winter. I’m out interacting with franchisees a lot, so when I see a truck that looks old and tired, I encourage them not to run it into the ground.” Conway understands that mainte- nance, refurbishment, and invest- ment into new trucks are impera- tives to expanding and/or selling franchises.While looking out for Mister Softee as a whole, he parlays the bigger picture to his franchisees. “There are guys out there, who have been with us a long time and they’ve really taken great care of their truck. But, their truck is now 20 years old. For those who are looking to take over their fran- chise, the truck doesn’t have any value to them. Nobody wants to buy a business with a 20-year- old truck.” This honesty and transpar- ency in business is an ethos of Mister Softee, and Conway believes that the company has be- come a multi-generational firm for this reason. He states, “If you didn’t conduct your business honestly and reputably, you wouldn’t have fathers and uncles bringing in their sons and nephews into the business.” He further describes his company PREFERRED VENDORS n FisherZucker LLC www.fisherzucker.com FisherZucker LLC is a full-service law firm with a national practice dedicated almost exclusively to franchise registra- tion, litigation, distribution, and licensing matters. The firm has offices in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. n I.Rice & Company, Inc. www.iriceco.com MISTER SOFTEE culture as open and welcoming. “We do our own financing.We finance people who would never get standard bank financing. So we are really open to bringing in minorities, recent immigrants, and women. If you took a snapshot of our franchi- sees, you’d see they are from all over the world. We are great at putting people into their business for the first time of their life, which is something we’re really proud of.” But of course it’s not all about company culture. Mister Softee’s production and product is superior. Conway explains, “When it comes to the actual construction of the truck, the way it’s designed, the equipment, the engineering that goes into it – we just flat out surpass anyone else who is build- ing a truck.” He calls the Mister Softee truck the Cadillac of the competition, built on a GM plat- form with an International body and custom-de- signed machines made by Electro Freeze. The past 60 years of service have helped the two generations of owners develop and perfect their offerings. As Conway concludes, “We produce the best equipment in the market, and if you fol- low our advice, you’ll be selling the best quality product that’s available on the market. You’ll be second to no one.”