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NEWS | May 11, 2012

Franchise Business Review Launches Search for Top Food Franchises

Franchise Business Review is looking for the best and brightest in food franchising as part of its 2012 Food Franchise Study and Awards. This national project looks at franchisee satisfaction at some of the country’s most popular franchise brands and honors the top franchisors with designation as a Franchise Business Review Top Food Franchise.
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SECTOR REPORT | April 26, 2012

Senior Care Franchise Report 2012

Franchise Business Review's special report Senior Care Franchises offers a high-level look at the senior care/home care franchising sector. We explore what services the sector provides, what’s involved from an investment standpoint, what the “typical” franchisee looks like, and how franchisee satisfaction in the sector has fared in the past year. We also identify the top senior care franchises based on our franchisee satisfaction research.
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ARTICLE | April 12, 2012

Honest-1 Brings New Blood to Auto Repair Business

The Honest-1 Auto Care franchise opportunity is a general service shop, offering primarily oil changes, brake checks, and other basic services — but two things distinguish the garage from competitors. The tastefully appointed lobby is comfortable and has a fully-stocked play area for children, a coffee maker with French vanilla capuccino and free wi-fi. Two weeks ago, Tom Dombrock and Fred Haynes debuted their latest venture with an Honest-1 Auto Care franchise — an eco-friendly auto repair shop that caters specifically to women.
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ASK FBR | March 19, 2012

How long have you been researching a franchise opportunity?

Franchise Business Review wants to know what you're doing in order to find that right "fit", and encourages all those interested in starting their own franchise to answer this simple question - how long have you been researching a franchise opportunity? (Click here to share) 
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Home > Resources

Chains expand their expectations for new wave of franchisees...

by Lisa Jennings

Chains expand their expectations for new wave of franchisees: Franchisors eye changing demographics in quest for diverse entrepreneurs with keen business skills

Little demographic information is available about who operates all of the nation's more than 183,318 franchised restaurants today, but food service chain experts predict that the franchisee of tomorrow will look a lot like Tom Shebazi.

This month in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Shebazi is scheduled to become the first franchisee to open a branch of the City Wok fast-casual Asian concept, based in Palm Desert, Calif.

Shebazi has been a Quiznos Sub franchisee since 1999, but he was drawn to City Wok because the young brand offered "opportunities to get in early and get good sites, versus getting in later and fighting for good locations," he says. The operator plans to open five City Wok units in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

Shebazi embodies many of the characteristics that franchisors say they are seeking. Most want experienced, multiunit, multibrand operators willing to develop a large territory or well-educated entrepreneur-investors who want to have more control over their lives and financial independence.

But are people like Shebazi--an engineer by training who was born in Iran--becoming increasingly common in the restaurant franchising world?

That's hard to say, according to Sonya Brathwaite, director of diversity and emerging markets for the International Franchise Association, or IFA, in Washington, D.C.

Organizations that are attempting to track the changing face of franchising find that many restaurant franchisors either don't know the demographics of their franchisees or are reluctant to make such information public.

In the wide world of franchising, the foodservice industry is considered to be relatively diverse. But, as market researcher Eric Stites put it, "it's still pretty white."

Stites is founder and president of the Franchise Business Review, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based research firm, which this fall is scheduled to release a survey of franchisee satisfaction that includes some demographic information.

Preliminary data show that, of the nearly 1,000 foodservice franchise owners representing about 40 brands who had responded as of presstime, 74 percent described themselves as Caucasian and 77 percent were male.

The Franchise Business Review's look at all industries shows that about 87 percent of the operators of all kinds of franchises are Caucasian.

Soon, however, a more comprehensive picture of today's franchisees might take shape.

The U.S. Census in 2002 began collecting information about whether small businesses were franchised operations--though the data aren't yet available. Soon the question will be included in the federal government's survey of all businesses, which Brathwaite contends will give a clearer picture of the nation's franchisees, by industry type.

Some foodservice franchisors are actively recruiting more diverse franchisees, believing that such operators should reflect their brands' increasingly diverse customer base.

Domino's Pizza, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., for example, recently launched a program called "Delivering the Dream," which offers financial support and mentors to help minority candidates become owners, particularly those who have started their careers with the brand as delivery drivers or managers.

"It has become a business imperative, as opposed to just being the right thing to do," says Brathwaite, noting that minorities represent an estimated $2 trillion in purchasing power at the consumer level. "It's a competitive advantage to be able to point to a fair number of minorities in your employee base, in your supplier base and in your franchisee base."

The Oakland, Calif.-based National Minority Franchising Initiative offers profiles of specific franchisors on its website. Though the profiles aim to include information about the number and type of minority franchisees, so far only about 20 percent of those surveyed answer that question, says NMFI founder Robert Bond.

McDonald's, for example, is listed as having 22,593 U.S. franchise units, of which 21 percent are minority-owned, though no breakdown of the minority groups is available.

Companies like McDonald's have the resources to actively recruit diverse candidates, Brathwaite says. Smaller franchisors, however, struggle with the issue.

That's why the IFA in February launched a new program called MinorityFran, which promotes franchising in minority communities and helps connect franchisors with minority franchisee candidates.

"We want to send the message that franchising is a smart and affordable way to recognize the American dream of owning a small business," Brathwaite says.

Quick-service fried-chicken chain Chester's International, based in Birmingham, Ala., for example, is putting that message into practice. Chester's launched a franchising program in 2004 with the goal of converting its mostly licensed units into franchisee-operated restaurants. Currently the chain includes about 1,700 licensed outlets and 54 franchised locations, the latter owned by 38 franchisees. Of those 38, five are African-American operators of single units, and another 10 are "New American" single-unit operators, says Russ Cooper, Chester's president. He expects those numbers to grow.

Published in , November 2006

 

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