Revolutionizing Franchises Through Certification Programs

Unlock the secrets of franchise success and profitability with Jayson Pearl, CEO and founder of ServiceScore, and Mark Jameson, Chief Development Officer of Propelled Brands. Discover how the Franchise Customer Experience Certification Program transforms franchisee satisfaction into consumer delight and, ultimately, business growth. Jason reveals the compelling hypothesis that happy franchisees drive happy customers, establishing a virtuous cycle of profitability. Mark shares firsthand how Propel Brands has been revolutionized by this program, ensuring their franchises not only meet but exceed industry standards.

Fast Signs' remarkable journey to 760 locations across nine countries is just the beginning. Learn about their strategic acquisitions, including Nerds to Go, My Salon Suite, and Camp Bow Wow, pushing their portfolio to around 1,400 locations. The rigorous Franchise Certification Process ensures that franchisees are fully supported and heard, driving both top-line growth and profitability. The importance of external feedback is underscored, demonstrating how franchisees and consumers contribute to the continuous improvement and success of the brands.

Customer experience is paramount, and no detail is too small. From mature, well-established brands to new and emerging ones, we discuss how leveraging insights and implementing best practices early on can forestall future challenges. The role of the Franchise Business Consultant is highlighted, ensuring that data collected is not just stored but actively used to enhance brand performance. Ethical considerations are also addressed, emphasizing the importance of readiness for certification. Stay tuned for exciting collaborations and our ongoing dedication to being a trusted resource in the franchising community.

We don't just talk about operations, we help you refine them. Check out how FranWise can help your business!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Fran Weiss presents what's your F-ing Business A podcast about franchising. Here's your host, Marianne O'Connell.

Speaker 2: 0:13

Hey everybody, welcome back to another edition of what's your F-ing Business, a podcast about franchising. I'm your host, marianne O'Connell, and I've been in this business. Well, we won't say how many years, because then you'll figure out how old I am, but I have been a franchisee, I have been a franchisor executive and for the last 24 years I have been a consultant and had the great pleasure to meet so many different great professionals and really incredible brands. And today we're going to mix it up a little. We're normally only talking with our franchise executives, but every now and then a new program comes out that helps suppliers or is done by a supplier and helps franchisors. So our guests today are two of my faves in franchising because they are the ultimate in professionalism. The first one is the CEO and founder of ServiceScore and the franchise customer service certification program, mr Jason Pearl, and his guest and ours today is the chief development officer for Propel Brands, and I'll let him tell you what's under that umbrella, and that's Mr Mark Jamieson. Welcome, gentlemen.

Speaker 3: 1:28

Thank you, Marianne.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Oh, I'm glad you're here, so let me do this. Let me start with you, jason. Why don't you tell me the genesis of this program and what it's designed to do?

Speaker 4: 1:42

Marianne, thanks so much and I'll just reciprocate the great things that you said. I'm a fan of you and FranWise and all that you've given back to franchising over the years and I really appreciate all you've done and, of course, the opportunity for Mark and I to connect today on this cool topic. So, yeah, the Franchise Customer Experience Certification is something we started a couple of years ago and really the idea came from starting to work with Franchise Update and the IFA on the Franchise Customer Experience Conference, which this would be the third year of that, so this was in the spring of 2022. And really, what we were looking at and what got me intrigued was some of the statistics that I think we all know well that every year, there's an average of 300 new brands that start franchising I think last year was over 400, according to FranData, but 84% of franchise brands never get beyond 100 units. And so, when we're thinking about the customer experience conference and, just more generally, education and support for franchise brands, we really started to think about well, what is it that drives growth?

Speaker 4: 3:03

And our hypothesis was it was all around franchise profitability, but there really isn't much research or best practices to help franchisors, especially new franchisors, be able to chart a course for their franchisees.

Speaker 4: 3:20

Certainly, there's great experience, and a lot of brands have that experience, but, especially for new ones, there's not really a roadmap, and so we really sat down and started working with four brands back about two years ago to see what they were doing in this area Chicken Salad, chick, christian Brothers, automotive and PuroClean. You know different businesses from different industries that have a lot of accolades in customer experience consumer experience but also franchise satisfaction. So we sat down and took a look at all the different ways that they employ their practices to be able to drive franchise profitability with a focus on their customers being consumers and franchisees, and that led us two years later to be able to introduce that to a number of new brands, three of which were with Propelled Brands at IFA this year, and so that's one of the reasons why we're so grateful to Mark and interested in talking a little bit more about it today.

Speaker 2: 4:27

Thanks for that. I'm intrigued by something you said, which is their customers, the consumers and the franchisees. Is it something that the franchisor, the certification is? How the franchisor delivers that to both the franchisee and the consumer, or how they deliver it to the franchisee, who, in turn, delivers that to both the franchisee and the consumer, or how they deliver it to the franchisee, who, in turn, delivers it to the consumer.

Speaker 4: 4:49

Yeah, that's a great question, you know, and it's kind of a mixture of both of those in a way. Specifically, what we measure in this certification are 32 different franchisor practices. So you know to your point, some of those are practices that are how the brand markets to consumers and puts in place look, this is the way we do business. So some of that's obviously how the franchisee delivers that brand promise and the training directly, but also how the brand is portrayed, how the franchisor is involved in measuring consumer satisfaction. The brand is portrayed, how the franchisor is involved in measuring consumer satisfaction, for example. So it's kind of a blend of both but then how they also support their franchisees and be able to link all that to profitability. So the hypothesis really is that happy and satisfied promoter franchisees create happy and satisfied promoter consumers, franchisees create happy and satisfied promoter consumers, and that virtuous cycle that a franchisor creates is really what drives franchisee profitability. And so we built this model in five different areas that incorporate those 32 different practices.

Speaker 2: 5:57

All righty. So, other than the fact that Mark is handsome and charming and Propel Brands is great, how did you choose him?

Speaker 4: 6:05

well, that's a great question.

Speaker 3: 6:06

So I think we can just stop there, handsome. Yes, yeah, that's it I'm good with that.

Speaker 4: 6:11

Well, that, I think those are the two biggest reasons. Of course, marianne um is, you know, certainly his hollywood good looks was, uh, the the major thing we took a look at. But but, honestly, when um in reaching out to mark, it's interesting. I think there was two reasons. So, certainly, what Propelled Brands, the leadership team? You know, catherine, mark, you know all of them represent in this industry, you know, I think you know, I was, you know, thinking about this podcast today and I reviewed what Catherine shared at IFA this past year in her-.

Speaker 2: 6:42

And can we say we're talking about Catherine Monson?

Speaker 4: 6:44

I'm sorry, catherine Monson yes, thank you, catherine Monson, the CEO of Propel Brands you know she talked about and I think summarized it well, that you know that the opportunity for all of us is to focus on franchising best practices that always have a franchisee profitability at the heart. So that culture that Mark has helped lead, of course along with Catherine, is a big piece of it. But specifically when I think of Mark, at the risk of giving him a compliment, he's somebody that I've known for many years through different advisory boards.

Speaker 3: 7:21

You didn't expect one in return.

Speaker 4: 7:24

Working on the Pride Council, a lot of things. But what I've always admired about Mark specifically is his work ethic but also just always being present for his franchisees. Those relationships of it might be a tough conversation, but he's going to get on the phone or get on a plane and have that conversation and always try to find the win-win and go that extra mile knowing that it's there, and so I think that's why the results in that business for so many years continue to set the pace in the industry, because of his leadership specifically. So we were excited that once we had something fully built, we could bring it to Mark, because he was too busy to help us pilot this. But we said, boy, we've got this great opportunity. And then he was kind enough to say, ok, you know what I get this. This aligns with our goals as an organization, and so let's do all three of our brands that they had at the time.

Speaker 2: 8:24

So that was going to be my question to you, mark. I mean, you're already spinning a whole lot of plates in your role as Propel brand keeps bringing on new and diverse brands, so what was the intriguing notion that made you say yes to bringing on something else?

Speaker 3: 8:41

Yeah, maybe I'll take it back a step and talk about our brands and who Propelled is.

Speaker 3: 8:45

You know I've been with the company, for it'll be 15 years in November, which blows me away. It's the longest I've been anywhere. I've been in franchising. Like you, marianne, I don't want to give away anything, so I'm going to say more than 30 years. I should have said more than 20. But that just means I'm old. But you know, we own four brands today. It started as Fast Signs when I joined the company. Fast Signs today has 760 locations in nine countries. In September of 2020, we acquired our first brand.

Speaker 3: 9:15

It was Catherine's vision to become a multi-platform company. I had worked for one previously, she had and we bought Nerds to Go, a small emerging IT brand with about 25 locations. And then, in July of 21, we acquired my Salon Suite, which today has 350 locations and another 300 sold and unopened. And in February this year, we were very excited to add Camp Bow Wow to our portfolio, which has about 225 locations and about another 30 in development. So a very diverse portfolio 1,400 locations, heavily franchise satisfaction, unit level economics, the ability to grow and drive our brands through marketing and driving top line, although Catherine has always said and we're big believers that we don't want to drive top line without making sure that profitability flows through to the franchisee and what Jason shared with me in this program.

Speaker 3: 10:28

I was kind of blown away by how comprehensive it was. You know we're in. We love franchise business review, we love doing our own surveys, we love all those things and this sort of. We have a very detailed item 19 for all of our brands, but this pulled everything together. How are we supporting our franchisees? How are we making sure they're driving the right information? And I saw this as I want that certification and today three of our brands have it and the fourth brand is in the works our brands have it and the fourth brand is in the works.

Speaker 2: 11:09

How much work is it for the leaders of those individual brands to go through this process?

Speaker 3: 11:13

Well, Jason will get mad at me because I will say it's a lot of work.

Speaker 4: 11:17

It's robust, Marianne.

Speaker 3: 11:19

He'll use the word robust. I remember calling him saying I don't have time for a full-time resource.

Speaker 1: 11:26

But I think what.

Speaker 3: 11:27

So it's not a lot of work. If you know where the parts and pieces come from, you know it is detailed and comprehensive. I was lucky enough to have a great project manager on the team, but I think we also learn when we go through that process. Boy, they're asking this question and how do we do that? Right, we know we do it, but how do we quantify that? We do it and it's real. So I would say there's it's a robust effort, to use Jason's word. But I also think the learning part was good for us. I had a project manager doing it and she'd come to me and say I know what the end result is, but I don't know how we get there, and so it was kind of good to kind of go through that process and say how do we measure that? How do we know what's being done each time? How do our franchisees execute in the field? And so I think it was well worth all the effort we put into it, and I'm told by Jason that it'll be much easier next year.

Speaker 2: 12:28

You're touching on a bunch of different questions for me. So for you, mark, approximately how long did the brands take to complete the certification? And, jason, what are you finding is the average timeline?

Speaker 3: 12:40

It would be hard for me to break it out because I assigned it to a project person with other responsibilities. I would guess and Jason, you can yell at me if I'm wrong I would think it's a solid day and a half, two days work over time by private equity. We're very buttoned up. We know where to get this stuff because our owners are asking for it, our PE owners, our franchisees. Catherine, as you know, is very detail oriented, so I think for us we knew where to go and get it. It may take longer for other, but there's a lot of details to it. And then much of the effort, to be frank, is on Jason. They had to reach out to franchisees and do some of the follow-ups.

Speaker 2: 13:31

Okay, so you're dealing, Jason, directly with the franchisees.

Speaker 4: 13:34

Yeah. So we try to look at this from a couple different lenses and, as you inferred, most importantly to make it easy for the franchisor but still make it credible. So that's the line that we tried to walk. So, yeah, the franchisor, through our secure online, will provide, you know, documentation on these 32 different practices that we're measuring. But in addition to that, we'll interview franchisees just to just to make sure that there's, you know, credibility, that we're kind of looking at it again from from all different angles when we're talking about these things being in place. And then we either with with brands, we either do direct consumer interviews or we'll do kind of extensive research around what's being said online.

Speaker 4: 14:21

You know customer reviews, you know chat rooms, you know all sorts of you know, NPS scores yes all sorts of things that are external, you know, kind of qualitative information, and then we'll take all of that and put that together in a report for the franchisor to be able to say, you know really, hey, here's the comments that we've read, here's where there's, you know, great things being said to celebrate, and then some opportunities perhaps, and then, on all of these 32 different things, be able to say, hey, here's, you know where these things are in place, but here's, um, you know where these things are in place, but here's how you could take that to the next level.

Speaker 4: 14:58

So, you know, for the brands you work with, it's, you know it's. It's recognizing all the things that are working, but providing resources, uh, to do better. And so, you know, the last piece is we have a resource area that we put together just for brands that are pursuing or have been certified. For each of these 32 different practices. We've got, you know, hundreds of different, you know, in total, hundreds of different practices, research, white papers, et cetera, to be able to take it to the next level. So it's really providing that, those resources as well as the recognition to get better.

Speaker 3: 15:37

And I would just add to that to say that what was great about it for us, I think, is I've got everything from a 35-year-old mature brand to an emerging startup brand, and so when you can look at those and say, wow, we do this here, but how do we do it over here? So I think the process was good learning. I love the tools and the resources for the team and I think every brand that goes through this is going to have their journey and for us, our brands are so different and the age of those brands and where they are in their life cycle is different, that there was very good learnings for our brand presidents to be able to look at this and use the resource sites and say, boy, here's some things that maybe I need to think about on a going forward plan.

Speaker 2: 16:27

You're reading my mind. Mark was my question that, as Jason was talking.

Speaker 3: 16:31

I'll keep the other thoughts out of that.

Speaker 2: 16:35

But it's like you have all these mature brands and then Nerds to Go was the new one and the smaller one. Was it a really different experience for them to to have to do this?

Speaker 3: 16:48

I think it was. It is different. It's some ways it's easier because there's less locations, but in the other case, because the brand's not as mature. There maybe are some things there that need to go. Even my salon suite, to be frank, is only a 10 year old brand. That's not that mature.

Speaker 3: 17:04

In franchising to get to that level of locations platform company we're always working on is how do we integrate these brands into our systems and tools, and what I love about this resource is it now allows us to look at it and go well, did we think about this and how it works across all four brands and not just assume that we plug it into Propelled and and everything works? So I think from that perspective, it was a really good learning tool and I think we'll continue to use the resources that Jason has built out to educate our operations team, our brand presidents. I'm in charge of development. I thought of it as a development tool when I got through it. I'm like this is really as much of an operational tool and a certification for everything we do as a company at Propelled Brands. Yeah, I got the little sticker that I'm going to put in my ads, but at the end of the day. I think our brands and our franchisees can be proud that we achieved this as well.

Speaker 2: 18:08

Yeah, I would see this as a great tool, also for training. I would be looking at that. Do you recertify annually, or how often do the certifications?

Speaker 4: 18:17

get every year yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:20

See, I would look at that annually and say, wow, if I'm consistently seeing topic A is not performing well, there's something we're doing wrong in the training with our franchisees. What are we missing?

Speaker 4: 18:35

I think you're exactly right, and you know it's funny, marianne, because we I just got off the phone with Todd Houghton, who's a president of HomeWatch Caregivers, who is another brand that we certify, and that you took the words right out of his mouth. That was. What he said was that that was one of the biggest benefits they had was to be able to identify opportunities for training so that we can say, okay was one of the biggest benefits they had was to be able to identify opportunities for training so that we can say, okay, it's resources for the team and ways for the executive team to be able to look at. You know where to make investments. But it's also to say you know what we want to be great at this. We've got some resources. Now let's enhance our training program so that we can shore up those areas where we need some opportunity. You know to go from you know really great to exceptional.

Speaker 2: 19:17

So a couple of weeks ago I was clearing out my office. Basically, I had lost a piece of paper and had to take everything off the shelves trying to find it.

Speaker 2: 19:25

But I found a piece that I have hung up here. This was a presentation I wrote for the CEO and founder of Money Mailer to make to another franchise company, and one of the things that hit me and when we're talking about this is it was the eight great myths of franchising, and it was that I can't get it down here that the myth is the operating system is for the franchisees, when the truth is that the operating system is for the customer. And I think that a program like yours that's why I was asking you have it for both the franchisee and the consumer is really embracing what the truth is. And I think we get so hung up. You know, in our practice at FranWise, when we're writing so many manuals, it's all about telling the franchisee what to do, not how to think, and it is all about telling the franchisee what to do, not how to think, and it is all about them and we're having to make sure we take it out to that end.

Speaker 3: 20:20

Consumer and what's that? What I love about some of the questions and measurements and Jason's to take us up further is they talk in terms of customer experience. Right, and that's what we're all looking for. What is that? I've got four very diverse brands. That customer experience might start online. It might start by walking into a location, and I think looking at it from the customer experience, which is really key to what Jason's doing really is, is a whole other way of thinking, but the right way to be is a whole other way of thinking, but the right way to be thinking?

Speaker 2: 21:00

No, I agree with that, especially with your complexity. Is this something you started in the introduction, jason, talking about the statistics which we've all simply accepted and nobody's ever tried to do anything about?

Speaker 2: 21:11

So I was like, oh, that's carved in stone, that's franchising, but you were saying that this is particular for these new brands that come in, that the franchisors don't have the roadmap, they don't have the resources. Is there a difference? I mean, obviously you're working with mature and robust brands oh, I'm sorry, you're robust, jason, but you Mark, but with robust brands, like all the brands under Propel.

Speaker 4: 21:37

Yes.

Speaker 2: 21:38

And so is it a different experience. If I'm new and I don't have a lot of resources that I came to the table with, I'm just learning to be a franchisor.

Speaker 4: 21:48

Yeah, that's a great question, Marianna. I guess I'll answer that two quick ways. So one is you're right, most of the, the brands, really all the brands that we've certified, uh so far, and, and the the next round that'll be announced in june are pretty large brands, um, so you know, part of that's intentional to be able to learn and kind of build out this model from you know, from these folks that are doing it well, um, and and and, knowing that probably the biggest surprise is that the brands say, hey, you know, we, we thought we were, you know, the best in the industry around that, and maybe we are, but we can always get better, we can always learn best practices from our peers. So, kind of creating that community as part of it. But you know that we, we, we've kind of learned that there has to be, uh, the ability for a brand you know, regardless of, to at least be able to take action on these things.

Speaker 4: 22:40

So when we talk about measuring and improving consumer experience, franchise experience, helping franchisees grow their profitability, it's not necessarily the number of locations or even how many years they've been operating.

Speaker 4: 22:50

It's not necessarily the number of locations or even how many years they've been operating, but it's, you have to have a certain minimum infrastructure to be able to have these things in place or have it be meaningful. Right, you're not going to with five locations more from great brands like you know, like all the marks, to be able to say how do we bring some of this back and the certification might look a little bit different, because you're not going to be able to do what you know a fast science could do, or even a nerds to go when you're just starting off. But you know, our mission really is to provide that trusted resource with the community of you know partners that we have and these great brands to be able to say hey, if you're just, if you're one of those 300 brands that are starting off, here's how you can kind of put some smart things in place from the beginning so that you're not learning the lessons that so many of all of us in franchising learn at, you know, 50 locations or 500 and then have to try to go back and retrofit putting in a chart of accounts, because we didn't do that from the beginning and we're trying to now get our books to all look consistent when we've got 200 locations. I've lived through that and it's better if you start that from the beginning. Just as one example, Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 24:16

And when you talk about best practices and small brands, they really aren't best practices yet. To me, they're just happy accidents. We really haven't enough time and volume to see if it works. So I can completely visualize the information flow that's coming from your resources through the franchise order, the franchisee to the consumer and getting the certification For both of you. The question is, what does the reverse of that look like? You might get great feedback on 10 of your criteria and then, as it comes down, are we asking the customer? Are we just looking by performance on what they do need to improve? So it goes back this way, not just in the beginning, when you're saying this is what we've heard and there are some issues, but are you getting a constant loop on the feedback?

Speaker 3: 25:13

I mean go ahead, jason.

Speaker 4: 25:14

Well, yeah, so I mean, one of the things I think that answers that good question, marianne is we're measuring if the practice is in place and that the franchisor is taking action, right? So, uh, you know we're not. You know there's, there's great companies that are measuring net promoter score or, like you, franchise business review, measuring the satisfaction, and you know and and what that looks like. So you know what we're measuring is are those things in place and how are you taking action to drive improvement, right? So we're, we're looking for that loop, as I think, as you say, but we're a little agnostic about what the score is, cause we know that whether it's, you know, good, bad or ugly, for any brand, the best practice is to know where you're at and be able to put resources behind improving those areas that drive profitability. So we know that that's the winning recipe, and so brands might be at different levels than that, but it there's those practices that drive that long-term growth.

Speaker 2: 26:18

Mark, you were going to say something.

Speaker 3: 26:19

I mean I think it's all about having the right foundation right as we went through this and I'll tell you as being somebody on the executive team we're looking at brands all the time, we're looking at others to acquire, and I'm always shocked when I peek behind the curtain of what isn't being done Right, and so I think this is a amazing foundation and there were areas where Lisa, who was working on it for me, would come back and say, well, we loaded this up and we him hell. But today, good questions were asked. I don't know that there's an ongoing feedback loop, but it's all about having the right practices in place and the foundation to make sure that the end result is right for the customer, hopefully the franchisee and, in our case, even investors. So I I think there's some great learnings from it, and I think anybody who goes through this process can come out the other side a way better company and maybe learn things that they shouldn't be doing or not that they should be doing. They're never even imagined right.

Speaker 3: 27:30

We all do things as practice, but we don't always go back, and I remember even, marianne, when we worked with you you've done some of our manuals. You would come back and go. Your FDD says this how are you making sure it's being done in the field? And we'd be like really good question. And so I think all of these things are learnings on how we can we have this vision, are we executing it? So it's easy for the franchisee and it improves the customer's experience?

Speaker 2: 27:59

So in all that you did and I know you had somebody project managing it but on a personal level, mark, what was your biggest aha in all of this?

Speaker 3: 28:08

Oh, that's a good question. I think for each brand it was a little different and I think I'd have to really go back and look at it. I know that all of us who do what we love and are passionate about it can get a little cocky about, hey, we're doing everything the right way. And then when you go back and look at it and I remember Lisa came back and said, hey, they've kicked this back out I'm like what do you? Mean they kicked that back out. I did.

Speaker 2: 28:38

I'm going to call.

Speaker 3: 28:38

Jason, no, and then we'd go back and go well, that's right, we need to look at these other three things. So it's hard for me to give a specific answer on where, but there were definitely learnings for us. I would say the disconnect with all these other things we do having a great manual, the disconnect with all these other things we do. Having a great manual, having an item 19,. Even FBR is what's the metric to make sure we're doing it for the customer, and so the customer interviews, the survey reviews. Those things to me was a big part of the learnings. That's all a big part of all these things we're doing and do they ultimately result in a happy customer?

Speaker 2: 29:19

that's good. So it's really just maybe that puzzle piece that's been missing for brands all along. So you can take the what you're but what you know I'm I'm going to say this more as a founder than just an executive but you you know what you have and why it's great and why you want to franchise it. And then maybe, as you go on, you actually get brave enough to stick your toes in the feedback loop and you do a survey with FBR, but you don't always know what do you do with that information. And it sounds like Jason, with the certification program. Then they can organize it, focus on it, not just embrace the things they got good grades on because they may not be driving revenue, but really go and sit down and find out how to maximize that feedback.

Speaker 4: 30:05

Yeah, that's so well said. And even to Mark's point about where you start, the thing that was most surprising for me, when we were getting feedback and starting to build this, I jumped right to the metrics and net promoter score and FBR and the advice that we were given was you got to start with culture, right? I think you said it so well, marianne, just there. You're a new franchisor. Why do you want to start this business? Right? You know you're a new franchisor, why. Why do you want to start this business, right? Um, so everything starts with culture and your core purpose and core values. And how are you going to do business? Why are you doing business? Starting with the? Why you know all those, all of those things? So it's operationalizing your culture is where we start.

Speaker 4: 30:51

And then, with that foundation, it's well, how do then what? What do we want that experience to be? That's consistent with our values, right, consistent with what gets us up in the morning. And then that's how we're going to award franchisees right, because it's going to be consistent with our core values, and we're going to measure and take action that's consistent with you know, our purpose and our core, core values, and all of that should be able to lead to profitability, because you know that's the business that we're in. But it's got to be consistent with you know the, you know the personality, the culture of the brand, um and and bring that all the way through.

Speaker 4: 31:28

And that was something that was. You know, you asked a question to mark about what was consistent or interesting about the three different brands that we were fortunate enough to work with, and that was the thing that struck me. You know. To answer that question was just the power of that foundation that Propel Brands has is with you know, these three brands are different sizes, different levels of franchising a number of years, but they have that solid foundation of look, we know who we are, we know what our mission is, we know what our values are and everything is going to flow from there, because the heart of that is you know why we get up in the morning, but it's to make life better for our franchisees through this business model.

Speaker 3: 32:17

And I think this is the first time and I've been doing this for a lot of years like all of us here, and we look at these things individually. This is the first holistic look at what we're doing across internal, external, all of that in one place, and I love that for this program and I love that for our franchisees.

Speaker 2: 32:38

I could just want to go here a great amen on all of that, because I find in my practice when I ask people what is their culture and we get to values, and I know I'm in trouble the minute somebody says, well, can you suggest some for me? Oh no, seriously can't.

Speaker 2: 32:59

Oh boy Don't know. You don't know what this is about, and if you haven't thought about it, the manual needs to go with the back burner for a while and let's focus on who you are. It was also as I was listening to you, jason. You mentioned way in the beginning that one of your initial brands that helped build the criteria was PuroClean and Bud Sommer, who works there. He has an evaluation tool that they use for their franchisees through the sales process and they really use that also, like oh, now I understand who Mark Jameson really is, I know how to talk to him, I know how to get the training across to him, I know when I'm in the field and now, if you put together that and the FBRs and what you're doing with the certification, this is a major game changer, has the potential to be in franchising. Congratulations for bringing that on. I had a question for a second, but right out the door, where do you see that? Well, I'm thinking about that, jason. Where do you see this certification program going?

Speaker 4: 34:04

Well, I think our mission is to be able to do something about those metrics. You said it so well, right, that we look at those metrics. We hear it every year and they don't change a lot. So that's, you know, that's aspirational, but that's, that's. That's going to be an accomplishment of this community that we're building and innovative leaders seeing it early, like Mike, mark and who we're talking about today to be able to really impact some of the emerging brands and be able to bring something more for them. To get that even early Because that's the thing that we're trying to figure out, quite frankly is, you know, it was sort of a catch 22 of, look, you want to catch some of those, those bad or not bad, but you want to help somebody chart the right path early. But it's if you catch them before they've charted, that mean that there's maybe some training or, you know, there's a way that we kind of, you know, bring this as education, working with Franchise Update and the IFA.

Speaker 4: 35:11

You know there's some opportunities that way that we're taking a look at, but it's, you know, and for large brands like Propelled, it's being able to you know, leverage the learnings that we, that we're, you know, all generating together to be able to help that you know, help these great brands get even better, um, and sort of build that community and give back because they've helped us build it in the first place.

Speaker 2: 35:37

And then, as new brands are coming in, will you I assume this would be a slow evolution, not a dramatic year by year change, but maybe watch how your criteria change, because you know what we used to do to support franchisees even five years ago, pre-COVID is completely different since our world turned upside down. So will you be constantly monitoring what your clients are finding out and then making adjustments on to what actually is a best practice?

Speaker 4: 36:04

yeah, so it's going to be, you know, adding, uh and enhancing the practices, um, changing the weights of them, quite frankly, because even though we're measuring different things, they have different weights as they correlate to franchisee profitability. Um, and then um, and then just being able to share those resources back with with these participating brands and franchising in general. Those are probably three goals for the next year.

Speaker 2: 36:30

Can you share with us some of the brands that have gone through the process?

Speaker 4: 36:34

Yeah, so we. So it's, um, you know the, the, the three propelled brands Fast Signs, nerds to Go and my Salon Suite. Our pilot group was again Puro, clean, wild Birds, unlimited Chicken, salad, Chick and Christian Brothers Automotive. And then we've been fortunate enough to work with Batteries Plus Home Watch, caregivers, massage Heights, qc Kinetics I think that's everybody. And then we, as Mark mentioned, we're working with Camp Bawa right now, and we'll have a couple other brands that we'll announce in June.

Speaker 2: 37:09

Mark. So when you get all this great learning and so much of this, I do believe that the most underrated role In franchising is the FBC, the Franchise Business Consultant. I mean I even have a diagram when I go through here's your culture. And then you is the FBC, the Franchise Business Consultant. Because I mean I even have a diagram where I go through. You know, here's your culture. And then you have the FDD and the franchise agreement. You narrow it down to the manual, the training, and then not the bottom of the upside down triangle, but the one holding it all up is that FBC. So how are you taking what you're learning from your certification process and interaction with the franchisees and training your FBCs to do a better job?

Speaker 3: 37:49

Yeah, I think we're going to. We actually have a company wide our first, with all four brands now event coming up for all of our employees to continue to build a culture and to talk about our brands and all the things, and we're going to use much of the learnings here back to our team to talk about what the learnings are, how they can execute it and what that looks like in the future. So I think it's a lot of data and it's good data, but putting it in a buck and doing nothing with it doesn't do us any good. So we'll continue to find ways to educate, I think, our entire team on it. But I agree with you.

Speaker 3: 38:28

I managed the business consultant team for a while at FastLines and that is the sphere of everything. Right, Everything hits that person and they've got to know where to go, but just the same, the team supporting them needs to know what resources that they're making available. So they have good data. So we're going to use this across the organization and I want to look at it as a lot more than just a plaque on a wall.

Speaker 2: 38:58

Oh, you already said it.

Speaker 4: 39:02

It's also an indicia on your ass. There you go.

Speaker 2: 39:04

What did I not ask of you, Jason, that people need to know?

Speaker 4: 39:11

No, I think this was great. I think you know if brands want to reach out, we do have a website that has some of these best practices and more information and, you know, features some of the brands that we work with, so they can learn more about these, the brands that I mentioned, and more about the certification it's FranchiseCXCertificationcom, and we'll put that in the show notes.

Speaker 4: 39:40

Okay, that's wonderful, but I think that's you know, that's our goal really, marianne is just is to be a great resource and be able to support franchising All three of us have benefited from and want to do everything that we can to support the leaders and lead ourselves in ways that we can.

Speaker 2: 40:03

Okay. So I'm going to ask you kind of an awkward question. Would there be brands that might say, hey, I need this, that you would say, no, you're not ready?

Speaker 4: 40:11

That's a great question. So where we start is with kind of an initial review of those 32 different things. So we have had brands that we've said you know what, let let's, let's wait a little bit, right, let's let's help you kind of, get there and give you some resources so that you know, when you get to that point that you have some of these practices in place, you know you're ready and then we'll. Then we can sit down and and do some more work together. But I think that's the main thing is that it's it's gotta be real and robust, and that's why, you know, we look at it from a couple of different angles, but that's a great question.

Speaker 2: 40:49

That's why I love you, because it's not just let's just take the money, let's do what's right for franchising. And so, mark, when do you get camp bow wow on this? Are you waiting for the dogs to vote on this one?

Speaker 3: 41:02

We are literally in that throes of that right now. We're excited about that brand and I would safely say I guess I lose some negotiation power, jason that we'll put any future brand in the same program. We see value in it and I would hope we'd be done with that in 30 days. You know we're it's a new brand for us. We got some learnings to do and it's also a great way for us to come up to speed. Um, on, you know where are those areas that we can learn from camp bow? Wow, because every time you buy a brand, you learn something from them, um, that we can integrate across the platform and or, hopefully, items we're bringing a value to them. So we're doing it now. I would hope within 30 days we'll be done and all of our brands will be certified and, uh, hopefully that'll be the company with the most brands certified maybe I think yeah, quite, yes, you definitely will.

Speaker 4: 41:56

You're gonna have to take a wall out of the the office down in carolton. Yeah, to roll it in now. We're excited about it.

Speaker 3: 42:04

I'm thrilled Jason brought us the opportunity and I feel like it is a evens the playing field for those that are wanting to know what is good in franchising.

Speaker 1: 42:19

And you know, catherine, we're all about what is good in franchising.

Speaker 2: 42:22

And you know.

Speaker 3: 42:22

Catherine, we're all about what is good in franchising right.

Speaker 2: 42:26

Hey, I'm going to make a shameless sales pitch for you, jason, because, as Mark was talking, I think, for all of the equity funds out there that are amassing brands, if you went with your existing stuff through this certification process, now you're also going to know which brands are a good fit. I mean, they might all eventually be a good fit, but now you're going to understand what your manpower is going to be in your timeline to bring them up to the level of profitability you're hoping for. So I think that the fund managers should start to take a look and get the certification process.

Speaker 4: 43:03

That's a great point.

Speaker 2: 43:04

You make me think. I love calls like this.

Speaker 4: 43:05

No, thank you yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:06

I mean it really it can.

Speaker 3: 43:08

it won't replace, but it'll make due diligence much easier. I look at a lot of brands as we're growing and expanding and I'm shocked at the things that seem basic in franchising that many don't do and I think you're dead on. This could expedite due diligence in some ways for those that are looking at it. If you're an emerging brand and you want to be sold to private equity, now's the time to get these things aligned.

Speaker 2: 43:34

Good point Great point so one. Oh sorry, jason, I cut you off.

Speaker 4: 43:38

No, I just said both of you, keep going, you're on the right track.

Speaker 3: 43:45

And have a good manual.

Speaker 2: 43:46

There you go, yes, no, we don't pitch that on this show, but yeah, it doesn't hurt One more time. Jason, If brands are interested, how do they reach you?

Speaker 4: 43:59

Yeah, if you go to FranchiseCXCertificationcom, there's information, you can set up time with me We'll do an initial evaluation with our team. There's no obligation, just to make sure that we'll help them get there. So we, you know, there's, there's no gotcha that if there's somebody wants to get you know, wants to work on a certain practice, we'll help them along the way. So there's not a lot of risk. But but it is. You know, we want it to be credible, we want it to be that if brands achieve it, they've, they've earned a distinction of, you know, of greatness and differentiation among other brands. And so you know, that's the balance we try to work and again we're grateful to Mark for helping set that standard.

Speaker 2: 44:51

All righty, gentlemen, thank you so much for this and for everyone out there. We say this on every episode and we do mean it. Do you have a brand whose story needs to be told so that others can learn from you, or do you know of a brand that should be featured? Just reach out to us at info at franwisenet. Until then, you got great resources out there. Go do great franchising, gentlemen. Thank you for your time, thank you, mary Ann?

Speaker 4: 45:19

What's your F-ing Business is created by O'Connell and Company.

Speaker 1: 45:21

Inc and Franwise and thank you for your time. Thank you, Marianne. What's your F-ing Business is created by O'Connell Company Inc and Franwise. It is written and directed by Marianne O'Connell, Technical mastering by Ryan Cleary. Our theme music was written and performed by Sean J O'Connell and Leviathan Brothers and is available on Spotify. All rights to this podcast and music are reserved.