Franchisee resource center

When Motel 6 conceived of the idea for a campaign in the mid-1980s, Bodett worked on NPR’s All Things Considered program. The Richards Group, a Dallas- based advertising agency, was hired by Motel 6 in 1985 and thought Bodett would be an excellent spokesman for the chain because of his warm and friendly vocal style. Hired in 1986, Bodett ad-libbed the line, “We’ll leave the light on for you”while in the recording studio for the first time and the slogan was both an instant and lasting success, staying with the chain for over 25 years and counting.

There are thousands of franchises in all type of industries, some of which can be started for as little as $25,000 and some of which require millions of dollars. Here are five of the most expensive industries for franchise businesses:

Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner has been criticized for “pimping out” her children, but the mother’s shrewd dealings may be a smart move. Of the 10% manager fee Kris takes from her family members’ earnings, daughter Kourtney says, “We’d have to give it to someone else; I’d rather keep it in the family,” and Kim states, “She has this vision for us, and she makes it happen.” In fact, it has been reported that Kris “makes it happen” to the tune of $65 million a year. What can business owners learn from this? When the goal is to build wealth, keep it in the family – all of it.

Today, Juice It Up has nearly 100 stores across California, Arizona, Texas, and New York. The California-style juice bar's smoothiesare consistently voted "best tasting" among the top smoothie and juice bar chains.

The franchise agreement should also address who gets to use the franchisee’s phone numbers after the franchise agreement expires. Traditionally, this right has belonged to the franchisor, but with home-based businesses becoming the norm, franchisors that allowed franchisees to use their home phones or existing cell phone numbers might have an issue regaining control of this component of their former franchisees’ business presence.

With a second lease on life and control of the franchisor squarely in the hands of private equity professionals, will Quiznos be able to navigate a still-shaky economy, challenge Subway for supremacy, and win back the trust of its surviving franchisees?

Consumer social networking sites are not only transforming how people live their daily lives, they are also influencing several business-related functions. More and more of these socially-enabled tools, platforms, and best practices are fundamentally changing the way companies handle data, manage customers, and perform market research. Businesses can harness the power of socially-enabled tools that promote collaboration and eliminate departmental boundaries that might inhibit innovation. We aren’t talking about the need for small business to have and manage their own social media accounts. At this point, such initiatives should be a given. The focus is on ways social sharing is altering business processes at a core level, transforming how people “work.”