“We’ve listened to dozens of our existing clients including several here at the IFA Conference in Orlando. They tell us franchisee marketing continues to wallow in disarray,” said FranConnect CEO Amit Pamecha.  “Some franchisees are too busy running their local units to market themselves.  Those that do often lack the expertise, content or technical know-how to do it well – and they soon abandon the effort.”

This market insight was reflected during the IFA Technology session on Sunday when Facebook’s Brian Wheelis told the audience that a “[franchisor] roll out is best, then let the franchisee buy into it.”

Zcubator™ tackles this challenge by providing a single platform for managing all aspects of franchise marketing.  Zcubator™ includes a comprehensive suite of 9 marketing applications —each essential to successful franchisee marketing.  From publishing and managing Facebook pages, to conducting customer surveys, to creating and managing email campaigns and print ads, Zcubator ™ equips franchisors with tools to put franchisee marketing on auto pilot.  All while controlling their brand and image.

Franchisors are already doing this type of work but never before have all the applications been accessible from one login and interface.

“As we do with all our solutions, we designed Zcubator™ with unmatched understanding of what it takes to run a successful franchise system,” said Pamecha. “It’s easy-to-use for franchisors and franchisees alike.”

About Zcubator: You can learn more about Zcubator™  or request a private demo at www.franconnect.com/zcubator or by stopping by Booth # 500 at the International Franchise Association conference in Orlando, FL

“We’re excited about Stan’s new role, as he will continue to advise FranConnect and our customers as well as lead consulting efforts in support of new, emerging and mature franchisors” said Amit Pamecha, CEO of FranConnect.   “Stan has always gone the extra mile: for the company, for his family, and for anyone that he can help.”

Friedman joined FranConnect as Senior Vice President in August 2010, bringing nearly two dozen years of franchisor experience with him.  Previously, he served in leadership and development positions for several well known franchise brands, such as Blimpie International, WSI Internet and Wing Zone.  Friedman is also a member of the board of the Southeast Franchise Forum and serves the International Franchise Association, (IFA) as First Vice-Chair and as a founding member of its Diversity Institute.  In fact, at last year’s IFA Convention, Friedman was the proud recipient of the IFA’s 2010 Ronald E. Harrison Diversity Award.

A frequent speaker at business development conferences nationwide, Friedman contributes regularly to the IFA’s Franchising World Magazine.  Said Stan, “I’ve spent the better part of my professional life in franchising.  I’m passionate about developing and implementing business strategies that drive profitable and sustainable growth, foster innovation and improve efficiencies. Hands down, the FranConnect system serves each of these aims better than any other technology I’ve ever been exposed to.”

About FranConnect:

FranConnect www.franconnect.com is the #1 provider of Franchise Management Systems with the most comprehensive franchising solution on the Planet! FranConnect’s integrated suite of software applications allow franchise organizations to manage all aspects of their operations including Sales, Marketing, Financial Data Collection and Analysis, Royalty Invoicing and Automated Funds Transfer, Contract and Legal Document Management, Customer Relationship Management, Help Desk, Franchisee Support, Online Training, Supply Management, Automated Ad-Builder, E-mail Marketing, Franchisee Web-sites, ZIP Code Locator Service, QuickBooks, Peachtree and POS Integration.

The fastest way for any service organization to get into trouble is to miss an appointment.  Sometimes this is unavoidable-cars get flat tires, employees get sick, and a host of other reasons.  But most appointments are missed aren’t an accident– schedule conflicts, improper scheduling, or disconnects between the person who schedules an appointment and the person who actually performs an onsite repair, estimate, or service are almost always to blame. The problem is so endemic that many service companies have just accepted this as part of their business.

Accepting poor customer service as simply part of doing business is sure fire recipe for disaster.

And it isn’t unavoidable, in fact, with cloud based customer scheduling, it isn’t even hard to schedule hundreds or even thousands of different appointments all over the globe. Here are some of the key features that a good scheduling system incorporates:

Cloud Based Scheduling

By having all your scheduling needs available online (In the cloud) employees can access schedules anywhere at any time. Cloud based scheduling is always available, always backed up, and always updated in real time. Service appointments are accurate to the minute

Calendar Sync

Keeping multiple calendars in sync is key to accuracy and efficiency.  When multiple calendars are used it is very easy to make the mistake of booking two things in a single time slot.  The typical scenario is that one calendar says that a time is available and another says the same time slot is booked. FranConnect solves this problem with our calendar sync feature that will sync service appointments scheduled through our system with both Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendars.  If your calendars are not in sync, your appointments won’t be either.

Multi-Party Scheduling

In most organizations more than one person may be scheduling a service appointment and that can quickly cause double bookings or inefficient bookings if all parties are not looking at the same schedule.  With a FranConnect solution every person is looking at the same schedule that is in real-time and always up to date. When looking at a calendar there is 100% certainty that it is accurate.

Service Area by Zip code

How quickly can your dispatcher connect a potential customer with the correct franchise? FranConnect has created a fool proof way to make sure that your potential customers are within a franchisees service area.  Simply type in the customer’s zip code and it will connect your dispatcher/scheduler to the franchisee that services the customer’s area or identify a potential customer as “out of service area”.

Customers are precious; businesses spend a considerable portion of their budget acquiring new customer leads. FranConnect can help you protect that investment and ensure an accurate system for managing the customers from the time they are a lead through the years of service you will provide them.  For an interactive tour of FranConnect’s service platform, please contact us.

By Joshua Lubbers
Business Development

Tough Economy Spurs New Wave of Self Employment.

Church’s Chicken chooses former Cosi chief as new CEO

Church’s Chicken hired fast-food restaurant veteran Jim Hyatt as CEO.

He replaces Mel Deane, who was CEO since December 2009.

Hyatt recently was president and CEO of Così Inc., a fast-casual dining company. Before that, he spent 16 years as an executive and franchise owner at Burger King Holdings. Hyatt was recruited to Burger King corporate after becoming an award-winning Burger King franchisee in the Atlanta market for 11 years.

Buffalo Wild Wings’ CEO got her start waiting tables

BACKGROUND: Smith joined Buffalo Wild Wings as chief financial officer in 1994 and became CEO in 1996. She had been CFO of the hearing aid company now known as Miracle-Ear. “I was a waitress in college.”

WHO SHE CHEERS FOR: All the Minnesota professional teams: the Twins, the Wild and the Vikings. Also the University of North Dakota hockey team and the University of Minnesota basketball team.

Jake’s Way Back Burger celebrates double-digit anniversary

Jake’s may be the youngest brand on our anniversary list this year, but its mindset is decidedly old school.

“We wanted to go back in time to where the burgers were just being introduced to the United States—back to the turn of the century when people experienced ground beef for the first time,” says John Eucalitto, president of the premium-burger chain.

Jamba Juice asks Facebook fans, “What would you blend?”

Jamba Juice Co. announced today the launch of its ”What Would You Blend?” campaign.

To kick-off the campaign, Jamba Juice is re-releasing last summer’s smoothie spoof, “The Cheeseburger Chill,” and is asking the public to share what they would blend if they were to make their own smoothie at home.

Consumers are invited to submit a photo or 45-second video of their smoothie on Jamba Juice’s Facebook page for a chance to be showcased in the “What Would You Blend?” gallery. Visitors can view photos and videos in the gallery and are encouraged to “Like” their favorites. The most “Liked” video and photo will be announced on Jamba Juice’s Facebook page at the end of the campaign.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three years since the reset button got hit and so many of the old rules of engagement for franchise development began changing. For some, it didn’t take long to realize that there would be the need for significant game changers, in terms of how franchises were marketed and how we would attract, manage and advance franchise leads through our funnels. Forward thinking development pros quickly embraced the notion that they would need to be far more diligent when it came to communicating with and managing their leads, as in many cases, there were far fewer of them to work with. Depending upon business models, barriers to entry and recession friendliness, some concepts and companies struggled more than others, but at the end of the day, there is no arguing with this: what once was; is no more. How we conduct the business of franchise development has forever and significantly been changed for all.

If we fast forward to the present day, there really is no argument that certain of the circumstances confronting us in the new normal of franchise development are clearly out of our control. Things like the credit crunch, or how banks continue to hoard, as opposed to loan money, being chief among them. While IFA and FRANPAC continue to lobby strongly to improve these scenarios, for the most part, these issues are out of our hands. That notwithstanding, there are a great many things, that if explored, identified and deployed, WILL make a huge difference in your results for 2012 and beyond.

CAPTIVATE, powered by FranConnect is one such resource. Now, unless you’ve actually experienced a first-hand demonstration of CAPTIVATE, PLEASE DO NOT GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT IT IS, MUCH LESS WHAT IT DOES. Contrary to popular belief, CAPTIVATE is unlike anything else on the market! It is MUCH MORE than just a virtual brochure, or a CRM. In fact, CAPTIVATE itself is a GAME CHANGER. Yes, like most CRMs, it will manage your leads, but unlike any other, CAPTIVATE will also enhance your lead flow. Let me repeat that and take it one step further: CAPTIVATE WILL ACTUALLY INCREASE YOUR LEAD FLOW BY AS MUCH AS 200%, OR MORE! Let me pause here, as you ask out loud, really? How will it do that? The simple answer is that it engages potential candidates on two levels employing both hi-tech AND hi-touch. No matter where you advertise, how well you optimize, or what key words you control in your space, CAPTIVATE is the only known product on the market that will actually convert more of the unique visitors to your public franchise development site, into leads, GUARANTEED.

What makes CAPTIVATE so unique, is that it will:

• REDUCE your bounce rates
• INCREASE time spent looking at your opportunity
• CREATE an emotional bond to your brand that NO WEB SITE alone can deliver.
• CONVERT more potential drive-bys into actual leads, conversations and opportunities!

Need proof? A one hour GotoMeeting call is all that it will take or come see us at the booth, during the FRANCHISE UPDATE Conference in ATL.

In the meantime, ask some of your peers that are already experiencing the CAPTIVATE difference Sean Fitzgerald, Wireless Zone, Rich Pittius, Interim Healthcare, Jeff Jirvak, Elements Therapeutic Massage, Rich Simtob, ZOUP!, Jonathan Barnett, Oxi Fresh, Ted Milburn, Nestle’s Cafe.

C-ya in Hotlanta!

Stan Friedman, CFE, Senior Vice-President, Business Development

Jamba Juice Company is partnering up with “Diet Diva” Tara Gidus, a registered dietician/nutritionist and nationally recognized expert in nutrition and fitness, to promote healthier choices for customers.

Throughout the fall, customers can visit Jamba Juice.com to see a variety of sample menus created by Gidus featuring better-for-you specialty beverage and food products from Jamba Juice. Consumers can check out chats and blogs from Gidus.

Spring-Green Lawn Care Honors Top Performing Franchisees at National Conference

Proceeds of silent auction to be donated to Aflac Cancer Center

(Plainfield, IL)–Spring-Green Lawn Care welcomed more than 225 franchise owners, managers, employees and spouses to its National Training Conference in August at Hilton Chicago/Indian Lakes Resort in Bloomingdale, Ill.  Themed Building for Profit, the focus of the event leveraged the collective knowledge of the organization and its strategic vendors as they worked to continue growing local businesses and market leadership in these challenging times.

Franchise Spotlight: How California Tortilla handles comments in an online world

Spontaneous and quirky California Tortilla is known for giving out free tacos if customers use the secret password, celebrating National Pop Tart Day with free Pop Tarts and other promotions that engage customers to keep the conversation going. With nearly 40 locations, the taco chain has its ear to the ground and takes monitoring customer feedback a step further than crawling Twitter and other social sites. The chain addresses each individual piece of feedback at the corporate level.

Red Mango to grow by up to 100 stores

With a new CEO, Red Mango Inc. is looking to grow the franchise chain by up to 100 stores and break into the international market in 2012.

Once the company got to a point were they felt like, OK,  we’re ready to grow this, there was discussion to bring someone on that had the professional experience and the wherewithal to make it more national than it already is and international, said Barry M. Barron Sr., who came out of retirement to run the Dallas-based company on Aug. 1.

Michelle Mistele and Parks Hunter named Rainbow Station Franchisee of the Year

Owners Michelle Mistele and Parks Hunter have been chosen as Rainbow Station 2011 Franchisee of the Year. They will be recognized at the International Franchise Association Dinner on September 13, 2011, in Washington DC.

Requirements and Account Management

FranConnect, Inc (http://www.franconnect.com) is the world’s #1 provider of enterprise software solutions to Franchise organizations with over 450 franchise brands as customers.

We are looking for dynamic and energetic individuals to help support requirements analysis and implementation of FranConnect software. Key responsibilities include

• Account management for existing customers; Ability to understand their needs and provide support to them
• Managing the implementation process for new customers
• Discussing best practices with customers and helping them implement them
• Understand customer difficulties and challenges in using different features of the system through quarterly meetings
• Act as a customer advocate in suggesting changes that make the software better

Requirements include a Bachelors degree with strong analytical skills. Ability to work with business software a must. The individual must be an excellent communicator who is successfully able to establish a dialog with the customer during web-based meetings. The successful applicant must have drive and ambition to work in a fast paced environment and take up multiple responsibilities. A background in franchising or IT is a plus

If interested, please send in your resume with a cover letter, expected salary and why you would be a great fit for this position and enjoy it to fcjobs@franconnect.com. Telecommuting OK.

Inside Sales Managers

FranConnect, Inc (http://www.franconnect.com) is the world’s #1 provider of enterprise software solutions to Franchise organizations with over 450 franchise brands as customers.

We are looking for dynamic and energetic individuals to add to our inside sales efforts. Full Time position for highly motivated business development personnel who can work independently and can aggressively deliver revenue targets. If you have worked in technology sales before and have a knack for “consultative” sales, this opportunity might be perfect for you. Requirements Include

• Ability to understand the different products that are part of the FranConnect application suite
• Reach out and qualify warm leads that are provided to you. All Leads are C-Suite individuals
• Conduct web-based online demos of the FranConnect product suite
• Enter all contact data into company CRM for tracking
• Manage the complete sales cycle – prospecting, lead qualification, demos to closing
• Manage a consultative relationship with the prospect – offering them solutions to problems rather than software with features

Ideal candidate would be some who is diligent and reliable and can meet deadlines, is creative and work in a fun environment. Prior experience with Software sales or selling to franchisors is a Big Plus. A college degree is required. If interested, please send in your resume with a cover letter, expected salary, whether you are interested in a Full Time or Part Time position and why you would be a great fit for this position and enjoy it to fcjobs@franconnect.com. Telecommuting OK

What was the challenge your business was facing as a result of the economy?

Our franchise company Abrakadoodle, which provides art and creativity classes to children, was experiencing an increase in the numbers of students and programs but was stalled in franchise sales caused by the recession and a lack of capital. Consequently, our popular program was growing but was not reaching new markets.

Buffalo Wild Wings, Inc. Announces Second Quarter Earnings per Share of $0.58 and Quarterly Net Earnings Growth of 16.4%

Buffalo Wild Wings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BWLD), announced today financial results for the second quarter ended June 26, 2011. Highlights for the second quarter versus the same period a year ago were:

How a Group of Dry-Cleaners Formed a Collective Franchise

Zips Dry Cleaners is proof that good things can happen when (lots of) great minds think alike.

If you’ve ever served on a jury, you know how difficult it is to get a dozen people to agree on a single decision. Now imagine getting 14 people from all walks of life to agree on every decision.

That’s the situation Zips Dry Cleaners found itself in when the north Virginia chain decided to begin franchising in 2006. The company’s board puts the Village People to shame in terms of diversity and includes everyone from a retired El Salvadoran general to an IRS agent to a nuclear energy consultant.

DVD Now Kiosk: Rental Revenue Up 6%

Rental revenue from DVD and Blu-ray Disc movies increased 5.9% in the second quarter to $1.48 billion, compared with $1.39 billion during the same period last year, according to new data from Rentrak.

Portland, Ore.-based Rentrak, which facilitates revenue-sharing agreements between the studios and independent video stores, said the rise in rental was driven by online and by-mail disc services and kiosks. Rental turns for the quarter were up 8.4% to $565 million.

Thank you very much. So, those of you who know me know too that I’m rarely at a loss for words. Words alone though, can’t express how I felt, when I was told that I was nominated for this award, much less that I’d received it. My work in diversity dates back to 1997, when the late Blimpie International Executive VP and IFA Board Member Chuck Leanness gave the green light to hire me as Blimpie’s National Franchise Development Director. With my new job, came a mandate from Chuck: He insisted that I become IFA active and strongly encouraged me to join the Minorities in Franchising Committee.

That was 14 years and a few jobs ago. But in that span of time and change, one thing that’s remained constant, is the support that IFA and many of its members like Coke, ExxonMobil, YUM Brands!, Church’s Chicken, Choice Hotels, Marriott, ServiceMaster, and of course, Pepsico, among others, have made toward promoting diversity in franchising.

Back in those early years, I marveled at how many companies seemed to have a difficult time embracing and understanding the concept of diversity. To me, the premise seemed simple enough. It all revolved around two easily understood notions: one being acceptance and the other, respect. Well, simple enough on paper maybe, but if history has taught us anything, it’s that understanding a concept is usually much easier than executing against it. And therein is the challenge. You see, embracing diversity forces most of us out of our comfort zones, it moves us away from things familiar. As a rule, people don’t like change, which makes it that much harder to get our heads around diversity. As a self-professed agent of change, this poses a bit of a quandary: after all, if we were all the same race, creed, age or gender, and our sexual orientations were in complete alignment, if our socio-economic standings were all on par, would we not still be individuals and unique in our own ways? The answer is yes. So then, to some degree, we’re already predisposed to learn and accept some individual differences in the people that we encounter.

Our challenge then, is to stretch beyond those bounds, and include differences in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religion and political beliefs in the mix. It’s the exploration of these differences in a safe, positive and nurturing environment that will actually move us beyond just simple tolerance, to the celebration of the rich dimensions of difference that are a part of us all. Now, I know it doesn’t happen every day, but how many times has someone come into your life serendipitously? Someone that you knew right away was meant to be there to serve some sort of purpose, to teach you a lesson or to help you figure something out? You may not have known why, but the moment you locked eyes with them, you knew that they would affect your life in some profound way. Well, for each time that you’ve enjoyed such an experience, ask yourself how many other times you allowed such promising encounters to pass you by? Maybe you chose not to embrace someone who could have been a life-changing connector for you personally or for your business? Perhaps it was because that polarity of magnetism wasn’t felt or maybe it was because something else about them was different.

Well, if I’ve been blessed with anything in my dozen plus years working on diversity, it’s the rich reward of the personal and professional relationships that I might never have enjoyed, but for the diverse group of teammates and friends that I’ve grown close to, working together on IFA’s Diversity Institute Board and the Minorities in Franchising Committee.

As I thank you again for celebrating this honor with me, I’d like to leave you with a challenge. Today, immediately following lunch and Steve Forbes’ keynote, begin talking with people that you’ve never talked with before and actually listen to them too. Break free of any preconceived notions or paradigms and don’t miss another single connection, person or moment in your life that could propel you and your business to new heights. I’m not asking you to consider this from a social, moral or political perspective. Rather, do it for the growth, fulfillment and betterment of your company, do it for your franchisees, their customers and employees. Do it for yourselves and for all of those that are close to you. America’s face is changing and will continue to do so in the coming years, that’s certain. How you choose to respond to that though, is completely optional. Revisiting your views on diversity is something that is within your immediate reach, no matter your financial condition, size or age of your company. It’s a decision that could make a profound difference on your corporate culture and on the results that your business achieves in the years ahead. Please, spend some time thinking about it and connect with IFA’s Diversity Institute for any help you might need along the way.

Thank you again, so very, very much.