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COVER STORY
It takes a whole family to raise the guest experience to a new high. Employing family doesn’t always work out, but when it does—wow. Here’s how Ed Doherty of Doherty Enterprises in New Jersey runs his multiple brands with a lot of help from his fam. |  |
FRANCHISE FOCUS
Green Issue
“Green” was once shorthand for saying a business was hip and socially conscious. But has the natural and organic movement retained its luster among franchised brands?
UPFRONT
Currents
Fritzi Woods has been named president and CEO of the Women’s Foodservice Forum. Formerly chair of the board, CEO and president of PrimeSource Foodservice Equipment Inc., Woods has been a member of WFF since 2003, and recently volunteered on the Board’s Executive Committee as the 2009-2010 Chair Elect. She will assume the role this May. Linda Pharr will remain interim president until that time.
Personalties
Starkly Honest Adam Siegelheim
Attorney Adam Siegelheim with Stark & Stark in New Jersey started out to be a Y2K lawyer. “My career ended rather quickly,” he says, referring to the turn-of-the-century crisis that never was. He turned to insurance defense, but found his heart wasn’t in it—especially the part about advising clients on how to deny coverage. He joined Stark & Stark and found a home in franchise law. Because he’s the father of small children (see one out of two pictured at left), he has no hobbies. But should he ever win the lottery, you’ll find him sipping iced tea and polishing his screenplay.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Calendar
Crossword
Exit Interview
My intention was never to make Alisa Harrison’s job difficult—nor to insult the incoming and outgoing IFA chairs, so when IFA’s vice president of communications and marketing called to say she had received several phone calls from members questioning something about IFA in the January issue, I did feel rather bad.
Publisher's Column
Hitting the Mother Lode of Advice
After years of hounding your children to pick up their clothes, make their beds or walk the dog, it’s a relief when someone else gets to tell them what to do. I mean, really, you’re just tired.
BIZ WISE
Finance
For years, my partner, Randy Evans, and I have been helping franchisors and franchisees navigate the tricky waters of getting into the franchise world, then developing a franchise business. Many of our franchisee clients have gone from one unit to hundreds of units, and many of our franchisor clients have grown from a core group of businesses to become multi-national concepts.
Marketing
Over the past few months, this column has focused on social media. So much so, in fact, that we’ve changed the name from “PR 101” to “Social Media 101.” Did you notice?
Operations
Many of our clients have proven remarkably resilient during this recession, yet others who have not fared as well have come to us for advice. And while each difficult situation is different, frequently a clear and avoidable thread runs through each troubled system we have seen. Successful executives, whether in franchising or another business model, intuitively understand that great companies pass a basic three-point test:
“We do things differently around here.” Whenever I interview management and this statement comes out in the first meeting, my antenna goes up.
Technology
Back in 2001, Bill Gates predicted that within five years, tablets would become the most popular form of PCs sold. Well, that didn’t happen. Over the next few years, many Windows PCs did come out in tablet form; however, adoption by users has been slow, and the only real traction for these devices is in specialized areas like healthcare.
LEGAL
Continental Franchise Review
Last October, Rent-A-Husband founder Kaile Warren found himself trying to stomp out brush fires ignited by a USA Today article he felt wrongfully damaged his home-repair franchise business and investment program. In an interview at that time, Warren alleged that the reporter’s “material omissions” and “multiple and blatant factual errors” greatly slanted the news story. Now those flames seem to have combusted into a full-blown inferno as Warren faces criminal indictment from Maine’s attorney general on three felony counts.
International
The story is a familiar one: The Founding Fathers gathered in Chicago, with few resources but with a strong sense that in numbers there would be strength. The principal motivating force was less greed than fear: Undercapitalized promoters, con-men and other manipulators were hawking get-rich-quick schemes, sometimes through celebrities, and they threatened to sully the new concept of “franchising” before it was well understood by the bulk of consumers or policymakers. We now know that they were prescient. But for the first decade of IFA’s existence, the threat did not seem to be materializing.
