Fitness Feature Articles

Fitness Feature Articles

Franchise Sector Showcase

Informative Fitness franchise articles to support business buyers, franchisees, and franchisors.

1. Should I make a financial performance representation (FPR)? Yes! Any type of representation, oral, written, or visual, that suggests or implies a specific level or range of actual or potential sales, income, gross or net profits qualifies as an FPR. You can't make an FPR unless it is in your franchise disclosure document (FDD). Between 20 and 30 percent of all franchisors make an FPR, which means some of your competitors share their numbers with your prospects. What impression do you leave if you don't share yours? If you have solid numbers, consider making an historical-based FPR. If you do, the law allows you to make specific written representations outside the FDD about a particular location or highlighting specific variables (e.g., a kiosk variation to a traditional retail format). Without an FPR, you may not make financial representations on your website (the first place prospects check in investigating a concept) or anywhere else.
  • Rochelle Spandorf
  • 7,212 Reads 195 Shares
About two years ago, at the behest of a friend, Nick Vojnovic, president of Beef 'O' Brady's, made his first foray into a nontraditional franchise location, opening a restaurant at the TradeWinds, a resort in St. Petersburg, Fla., with 1 million annual visitors. It wasn't exactly on his radar, but Vojnovic decided to give it a go.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 4,441 Reads 1 Shares
Business buyers evaluating a prospective purchase want answers to key opportunity factors. If you don't provide these answers, their relatives, CPA, attorney, or armchair advisors will! During my career I've had the enviable position of gaining insight into these major decision-making criteria, which could make or break the attractiveness of a franchisor's concept with discerning buyers. I've listened to, learned from, and consulted with hundreds of print and Internet advertisers seeking ways to accelerate their response rates. This included providing in-house creative services to increase lead generation performance. What we discovered were the critical factors that attract prospective franchisees--whether you're a $50,000 cleaning franchise or a $1 million restaurant concept.
  • Steve Olson
  • 3,568 Reads
As savvy franchise companies continue to flourish in this challenging economy, FUSR will bring you Good News each month, highlighting brands that are adding units, increasing comp store sales, striking deals with investors, and continuing to grow despite the economy - maybe even because of it. And as the U.S. economy struggles through its "jobless recovery," growth-oriented franchisors continue to look overseas for expansion opportunities.
  • Franchise Update
  • 6,241 Reads 93 Shares
As savvy franchise companies continue to flourish in this challenging economy, FUSR will bring you Good News each month, highlighting brands that are adding units, increasing comp store sales, striking deals with investors, and continuing to grow - despite the economy… maybe even because of it. And as the U.S. economy struggles through its "jobless recovery," growth-oriented franchisors continue to look overseas for expansion opportunities through master franchise deals.
  • Franchise Update
  • 6,805 Reads 93 Shares
Wingstop announced positive comps for the 25th consecutive quarter, dating back to July 2003. Wingstop ended its most recent quarter with a 1.6 percent increase and is up 3.8 percent for the year. The company predicts the positive trend to continue into the fourth quarter during the football and holiday seasons, when its sales are typically strongest. "This news is strong evidence that limited-service chains continue to deliver value during a difficult economic climate," said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, Inc., an industry research firm. Wingstop, founded in 1994 and franchising since 1997, has 425 restaurants open in 34 states.
  • Franchise Update
  • 4,320 Reads
Robert came to us to help him develop a 5-year Transition Growth Plan so he could sell his company and retire. He had high expectations for what the sale would net him financially, based on his presumed growth rate. Unfortunately, his presumptions were well beyond business reality. He had never utilized a written strategic growth plan or a business model innovation program. And the stagnant state of affairs which made up his company were proof of this.
  • Nicholas K. Niemann and Andrew Horowitz
  • 16,176 Reads 1 Shares
Even in tough economic times, franchisors are stepping up and giving back to causes and organizations they - and their franchisees - believe in. Many of these activities fall under the radar, displaced by news and events deemed more immediate or important. What could be more important than raising money and donating time to help those in need, especially when budgets are pinched and time is at a premium? That's why we're taking the time to recognize our contemporary heroes.
  • Franchise Update
  • 3,621 Reads 1 Shares
Everybody loves lists. Whether it's a year-end "best of" list in the entertainment world or a list of business-performance rankings, we see them everywhere. Lists give us insight and a benchmark for all kinds of comparisons. Readers continue to tell us that the lists found in the pages of Multi-Unit Franchisee magazine each issue are informative--and sometimes provocative--and provide a perspective that often allows for self-assessment and operational adjustments.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 11,013 Reads 1,023 Shares
Gurvinder Singh is, in many ways, a "normal" 24-year-old guy. A former wrestler, he's into martial arts and spends an inordinate amount of time training in the gym. Despite his high energy level, he can go "couch potato" with the best of them, and he loves TV (his favorite show is "Lost"). He also loves cars, and jokes that the health of his business can be measured by the impressiveness of his ride.
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 3,553 Reads 13 Shares
When Jeff Innocenti was a teenager in the Bronx, he and his brother James pretty much lived at the Gold's Gym in nearby Yonkers. "Our mother bought us our first membership and we became gym rats," says Innocenti, now 40. "Working out with weights was pretty much all we did at the time. We may as well have lived there."
  • Amy Zuckerman
  • 14,239 Reads 3 Shares
Vocelli Pizza
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It was like a gut punch for Charlie Marshall. In less than a year's time, the Spring-Green Lawn Care multi-unit franchisee went from paying $12 per bag for lawn fertilizer to more than $25 per bag. "That will make you look for ways to streamline and cut costs," says Marshall. To add insult to injury, gasoline prices were skyrocketing, making it even more expensive to fire up his seven trucks and dispatch crews to care for his customers' lawns each day.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 4,761 Reads 1 Shares
About 20 years ago, Greg Cutchall learned a crucial lesson. An investor group he worked with forced him out of a chain of KFC restaurants in Omaha, units he had operated and helped to build. That fired him up to make things happen for himself.
  • John Carroll
  • 5,385 Reads 1 Shares
Retailers have never been shy about enticing customers to buy through all kinds of incentives. Now a franchisor has followed suit. During the last quarter of 2008, Seattle-based Emerald City Smoothie was offering a "buy one, get one free" franchise promotion. Seriously.
  • Franchise Update Magazine
  • 7,267 Reads
This article from 2008 could almost be written today. Learn how the more things change, the more they stay the same (except for Covid, of course).
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 5,283 Reads 14 Shares
In 1993, Grant Simon had his heart and mind set on identifying a franchise he could commit to. He found it while getting a haircut.
  • John Carroll
  • 5,604 Reads 12 Shares
Unfortunately, many franchisors flounder in direct-response recruitment advertising. Typically, their development efforts focus on improving their sales and media sources, with minimal attention paid to increasing ad performance.
  • Steve Olson
  • 3,763 Reads 1 Shares
With her high energy and positive attitude, it's no surprise that Linda Fong is a successful multi-brand, multiunit franchisee. However, like many franchisees, she's not one of those who made a plan and followed a straight line to that success. But it's the detours and her individualism that have taught her what she needed.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 3,676 Reads 15 Shares
Ask any small business owner in the country how important customer retention and loyalty are and they'll tell you they rank right up top of the list of business priorities. It's no different in franchising.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 3,526 Reads 76 Shares
Franchisees aren't the only ones with more than one brand these days. Increasingly, franchisors are getting into the act as they see the value in selling multiple brands from under one corporate roof.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 4,377 Reads 1 Shares
Kahala Corp. moves fast. When we first spoke with Chris Prasifka in late March, he was executive vice president to the CEO. Two weeks later he was president of Kahala Franchise Corp.--and charged with leading the franchisor and its 13 brands from 4,600 units to 10,000 units by the end of 2010 (an average of 170 units every month for 32 months).
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 5,456 Reads 133 Shares
Dine Brands Global, Inc.
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The former Soviet Union was a frightening frontier for expanding businesses in the early- to mid-1990s. The former communist country was experiencing growing pains as it left behind decades of closed existence and began embracing a new economy built around more of a free market-based environment. And it was just this setting that Jake Weinstock and Paul Kuebler dived into headfirst.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 8,069 Reads 1,014 Shares
Even 10,000-unit gorillas have an Achilles' heel. For Curves, the number-one women's fitness and weight loss franchise, its own success is now biting it in the ankle. Competitors of all sizes and shapes have sprung up, offering women an ever-increasing array of options for losing weight and staying fit.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 3,381 Reads 117 Shares
There’s probably not a bigger franchise opportunity in America...literally. Weight loss franchises not only help individuals change their lives, live longer, and more healthfully, but also offer high earning potential for franchisees who are interested in a piece of the $46 billion weight loss franchise industry.
  • Kerry Pipes
  • 2,200 Reads 3 Shares
Last Saturday, mom and dad packed the kids into the minivan and headed out to the fitness center (Curves for her and Athletic Republic for him). First they dropped the kids off (one at Huntington Learning Centers, the other at Abrakadoodle). Before they left, they'd made sure the woman from Bathfitters knew exactly what they wanted done with their new shower, and reminded the man from Spring-Green to cut the back lawn extra short this week.
  • Eddy Goldberg
  • 4,664 Reads 1 Shares
1987 was a good year for franchising. Up to then, franchising was young, brash, and not always professional. Franchises weren’t much concerned with history. They were built mostly by young entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity and grabbed it, looking forward, not backward. The first 30 years of modern business format franchising had the feeling of the Wild West (like the Internet of the last 10 years).
  • Eddy Goldberg & Ripley Hotch
  • 3,694 Reads 9 Shares
When Liz Goodwin of Durham, N.C., was announced as the Curves Franchisee of the Year for the Southeastern Region last October, a cry went up from across the Las Vegas hotel ballroom.
  • Debbie Selinsky
  • 4,217 Reads 20 Shares
Mike Snyder, who grew up in Michigan and spent most of the last 20 years in and out of California, began work after college as a driver for FedEx in the early ‘80s. He ended up as vice president of the company's eastern region, responsible for $2 billion in revenue and more than a thousand employees.
  • Ripley Hotch and Debbie Selinsky
  • 3,121 Reads 5 Shares
William Monk, Burzynski's ideal AD, was born in Farmville, N.C. He grew up around the family tobacco business his grandfather had started in the 1900s, and went to college to prepare to be part of it. He earned a degree in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and later got his MBA down the road at Duke University in Durham.
  • Ripley Hotch and Debbie Selinsky
  • 3,238 Reads 1 Shares
Conventional wisdom has it that young franchises are jumping on the area developer bandwagon to grow quickly and establish their presence in the most efficient way.
  • Ripley Hotch and Debbie Selinsky
  • 3,558 Reads 137 Shares
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