Franchisee Resource Center

AS: The finance background is helpful but absolutely not necessary in opening the franchise. It was helpful that I knew how to read the financial statements, but it is not a skill that cannot be learned quickly. In retrospect, any experience that one has is helpful in opening and running your own business. You are faced with so many different challenges on daily basis, therefore the more experience you have with Marketing, Operations and Finance, the more tools you have to solve these problems the best possible way.

FranchiseHelp interviews J.R. Cottle, franchisee and area developer of Highway 55 (formerly known as Andy's Burgers Shakes & Fries) casual restaurants. J.R. started working as a fry cook at HWY 55 as a teen and now owns multiple HWY 55 restaurants with plans to introduce the franchise to South Carolina. He draws upon his experience as an employee and his current perspective as a franchise owner to offer his advice and best practices to prospective franchisees, employees, and employers alike.

Because we have 30 years of experience as the largest frozen yogurt concept, our size allows us to provide services to franchisees that smaller brands don’t have the resources to provide. We are only as successful as each of our individual franchises are, so it is of utmost importance that we offer a service model, economic model and brand model that are appealing and profit generating for our franchisees.

Doug Howard: Today’s school systems are overloaded with standard testing requirements and are significantly underfunded in the creative arts. And yet many national studies from educational agencies consistently show that drama participation builds creativity, critical thinking, and collaborative skills that are necessary in college and for successful careers. Drama Kids fulfills a need by bringing its after school classes and summer camp programs into schools and community locations.

Secondly, our model uses a small staff of full-time workers, instead of a larger number of part-time workers. We believe that leads to longer-term employees who are better trained and able to provide a better overall experience to the customer.

In the Cold Stone case, the franchisees are also seeking information relating the pricing of the supplies on which the franchisor is receiving the vendor rebates. If it turns out that the prices that vendors charge franchisees are artificially inflated in order to allow for payment of these “kickbacks” to the franchisor, then the franchisees no doubt will assert additional claims in their lawsuit against Kahala. Such claims may include fraud for inadequate or misleading disclosures in the Cold Stone FDD (if in fact information was withheld – at this point, we don’t know who is right or wrong).

In addition to new franchises, in the next 12 months SailTime is launching various membership types offering boaters preferred access: to a fleet and/or a specific boat; locally and/or nationally; for power-boats and/or for sail- boats.