Grow From Here

For those who enjoy reading the franchisor spotlights, have a look at Franchisor Spotlight: Judy Brooks from Blow Dry Bar – Business Wisdom on The Next Women – a business magazine for female internet heroes. 

It’s an interview I did with Judy Brooks from the Blow Dry Bar, talking about how she has grown Blo and her personal learnings along the way as well as her advice for people considering franchising.

A short excerpt:

Growing her company has come from growing the brand and building a strong community, where customers know that they have something in common with the person sitting next to them, whether they ever speak together or not.  Her brand is built down to the smallest detail; calling new staff ‘hair cadets’, fit out details for the premises, playing on the name ‘Blo’ and teaching new staff to honour the fact that customers chose to spend their money with Blo.  Her staff tend to be young and very plugged in – Blo is active online with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and online bookings.  Read More

The Next Women is also a great place to find articles about women in business and women involved with interesting technology – both start-ups and established companies.

Best Practices, Business Growth, Franchise, Franchisor Spotlight

Enterprising Moms Network.com

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and in the case of Kelley Scarsbrook that age old expression holds doubly true. I’ve recently had the pleasure of working with Kelley who developed her own franchise, the Enterprising Moms Network. The Enterprising Moms Network offers a place for mothers who are also entrepreneurs to come together and talk about their questions, issues and challenges and be reminded that it is possible to be both a good mom and a good entrepreneur. Kelley Scarsbrook, the founder, is a columnist, entrepreneur, blogger & a mom.

I talked with Kelley about how she got going, her franchise experience, and some of the factors in her success.

Katryn: When did you start Enterprising Moms?

Kelley: I started in Oct 2007.

Katryn: What prompted you to start your own franchise?

Kelley: Back when I left the work force full-time & became a stay-at-home mother, there were no job share or part-time opportunites for me. I started the Mom At Home blog and received lots of emails asking how I got the blog going and ran a business as a stay-at-home mother. I discovered there was nothing out there to support mothers who also want to run businesses. I knew having a secondary income (which almost every family today needs) was important for many women. There are a lot of women who are smart & intelligent but don’t see the options available to them. They have business ideas, but no network to help them get to the next level.

I started small workshops on how to have home-based business for women. It started with really small workshops & seminars, with ten women in a room. Eventually those workshops evolved and grew. I then hosted a luncheon with Sandra Wilson (she had just sold Robeez). Everyone wanted to hear how she did it, how she built her business & eventually sold it for many millions.

The luncheons evolved into events to celebrate women who have done it – made a viable business for themselves. The first event was about celebrating moms in business. It was not a tradeshow, but an educational opportunity. I saw a need for ongoing support for Moms in business.

Katryn: How did you get into franchising?

Kelley: I knew that other women needed/wanted this. I initially I took on the expansion myself, opening in Richmond, & the North Shore, then thought it was ridiculous to think that I can be everywhere. It was supposed to be a side thing but it was taking all my time. I asked members about who might want to run their own chapter. From there, franchising was an opportunity to get it out to other communities.

Katryn: What are/were your franchise development challenges?

Kelley: There were all the details involved with setting it up, the things I never would have thought about. I had to create the manual & the book – writing out the training manual – putting all my brain into it – how I run meetings, what my thought process is & putting that all into words so someone else could pick the book up, read it and run with it. The hardest part of the work is getting people to understand. One of biggest stereotypes to get over was that people assumed the Enterprising Moms Network was about mom topics only. The second obstacle is the type of mom people picture – eg. moms knitting at home. We are business women who happen to be mothers. We have all different levels of successes, and people are always surprised by the profiles of our members. People tend to assume franchising is a hands-off business, but if anything, it’s more time consuming because you have to train & oversee the business. For anyone considering franchising, definitely speak to people in that world to get a full grasp of what is involved.

Katryn: What has been the most exciting part for you?

Kelley: Seeing it catch on. Seeing people understand what it’s about and who are as passionate about it as I am. It was great to connect with other women who “get it”. Building the Enterprising Moms Network has been a bit llike a wheel – you push and push to get it to turn, then it eventually begins to turn on its own and gathers momentum.

Katryn: What were your best resources?

Kelley: Small Business BC (http://www.smallbusinessBC.ca) is a huge, tremendous resource. They have a lot of great programs.
Talk with franchise lawyers or consultants and get some insight first before you take the plunge. Get information & learn about what it means to be a franchisor and the amount of work involved.

Connecting with Kelley Scarsbrook

The Stay At Home Mother is where it all started, and I continue to post information and stay in touch with people there. I am new to Twitter, and am just learning all the lingo and educating myself slowly on how Twitter works. I can also be contacted directly through the Enterprising Moms Network website.

Our next event is the 2009 Business Conference “Get the Word Out!”, Saturday, June 13th, 2009 – 11:00 – 5:00pm. The Conference is an inspirational Event that supports and educates mom entrepreneurs.

Business Growth, Franchise, Franchisor Spotlight

Martha Matilda Harper and the Harper Method – 1888

Martha Matilda Harper was born in Ontario.  She emigrated to New York where, in 1888, she founded the first retail franchise (also called a business format franchise).  She first established one salon and built up its clientele and reputation, then expanded to Buffalo, across New York, to Detroit, Michigan and then to Chicago in time for the World Fair in 1893.   She eventually developed a network of 500 salons across America, Europe, Central America and Asia.  The first shop owners were all poor or working class women.  Harper created the Harper Method and training centres and created a formula for business success that considered location, product lines and services, marketing and the customer experience.  Nothing was left to chance, so that customers got a predictable experience in any Harper salon around the world.  As her biographer, Jane Plitt (author of Martha Matilda Harper and the American Dream) says, ‘She created a team of loyal, ambitious women who followered her precept and business practices as if they were scriptures, and whome she and customers worldwide trusted to carry on the Harper tradition withconsistency and finesse”.

Her ‘Secret Sauce’

The three things that distinguished Martha Matilda Harper and made her frachise operations a huge success are still key to franchises and their business success today.

1. Creative and distinctive Marketing
   When she first began, Martha Matilda Harper used creative advertising and marketing techniques, including offering her salon as a reception room for the next-door piano teacher (one way to get customers in the door!), setting up child care rooms in her salons to build a future generation of customers, and getting the patronage of high profile women like Mrs. Coolidge and Susan B Anthony.
2. Customer Experience
   Martha Matilda Harper focused on making the experience of being in her salons a delight for her customers.  She developed the first reclining shampoo chair (so customers would not get the soap in their eyes), charmed everyone who entered, and, through her training programs, ensured that new associates would not graduate from her training programs until they could make the customer smile.
3. Consistency and Training
   Martha Matilda Harper set up training schools across Canada and the United States to ensure that the quality and training were consistent.  She closely monitored the quality and practices of the franchise locations and sent regular newletters to her many franchisees.

Historical Considerations

As I was researching the story of Martha Matilda Harper, and the first franchise, I came across a number of sites that referred to Albert Singer, founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, as the founder of the first franchise system.  The key difference seems to be that Singer’s products were sold by salaried employees, rather than by franchisees, as in Martha Matilda Harper’s case.  She installed working-class women like herself in salons exactly like hers, trained them, inspected them, and shared the benefits of her marketing and advertising campagains with them.  They owned the salons so long as they bought Harper and followed Martha’s rules and the Harper Method.

Other Resources:

• http://www.winningthevote.org/MMHarper.html
• http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=203
• http://www.marthamatildaharper.org/

Business Growth, Focus, Franchise, Franchisor Spotlight

Franchise Profile – Multi Menu Foods

Home Based Business Model Franchises are growing in popularity. I recently heard them referred to a micro-franchises, but this is a different business model all together.  I first met Ron Hawkins from Multi Menu foods at The Franchise Show in Vancouver back in September. He is offering Multi Menu franchise opportunities in the Lower Mainland.  We spoke again a couple of weeks ago, and Ron told me some more about Multi Menu foods.

Multi Menu History & Overview

Multi Menu started in 1993, and has been expanding outside of Quebec since 2002.  They offer dry pet food for cats and dogs, cat litter and over 6500 accessories.  All purchases are delivered right to the customer’s home.  Customers get the benefit of lower prices, lots of choice, specially developed formulas and lower costs than by purchasing in a retail environment.  In addition, they don’t have to carry heavy bags home from the store – everything is delivered to the door.

Multi Menu currently has more than 160 franchises across Canada, and Ron is the Master Franchiser for the Lower Mainland.  He has a great story of how he got involved with Multi Menu.  Originally, his son was looking for a franchise and went to a franchise show where nothing really appealed to him except Multi Menu.  He took the product home and they loved it.  His son then asked him to get involved, and Ron did – he really liked the setup and loves seeing how customers respond to the product.  He was then asked if he would be interested in taking on the Master Franchise and growing the company here in the West.  It’s been a great experience for him and he has just added a couple of new franchises in North Vancouver and White Rock.

Benefits for Franchisees

I asked Ron about the benefits of the home based business franchise model (in general) and of a Multi Menu foods franchise in particular.  He says Multi Menu is great for people:

• who are looking for flexibility in terms of their schedule and their time
• who may not have the financial ability to make a large investment
• who want to begin part time and grow their business
• who love pets
• who are social; happy to get on the phone, ready to go to shows and meet people
• who want a well developed and proven system to be part of

I was struck by Ron’s comment that people can start with whatever time commitment works for them.  He says the business model can be tailored to the time franchisees have available, and it can start as only 10 hours a week, or be a full-time commitment.  Either way, there is a known model for what they will get out of it, and they can have the flexibility to grow into a larger commitment over time.

Another interesting part of Multi Menu’s structure is that there is no on-going royalty fee.   Franchisees pay a small monthly fee for the computer systems that support their business, and, after the intial franchise fee,  that’s the extent of the ongoing costs aside from the costs of running their business.

Best Advice for Someone Considering a Multi Menu Franchise

Ron’s best advice for someone considering a Multi Menu franchise is to talk to other franchisees.  Potential Multi Menu franchisees are given a list of other franchisees and invited to talk to any of them.  As well, they are encouraged to check out the products, try the samples, and look at the online pricing. 

For more information, check out the Multi Menu web site.

Franchise, Franchisor Spotlight