P: For those that are not familiar, what’s the difference between a franchisee association and a franchise advisory council?
M: We have a Franchise Advisory Council. That’s another thing that’s hard to get owners on. It’s a nice organization, but it’s run primarily by the franchisee…franchisor, I should say, sort of manages that council, and they advise. But they don’t have the same level of authority, in that the franchisor can take the advice or not take the advice, and they sort of manage the agenda, things like that. But the owners association, that’s run by the owners. We, the franchisees, set the agenda, we set the tone, that’s our organization. And so that’s where our strength comes from, as you can imagine.
It’s just like anything. If I have 300 employees, if they all show up tomorrow and say, “I want a dollar an hour raise,” okay, great. What am I going to do? Hopefully, they’ll be reasonable. But a united workforce, or united franchisees, is a powerful thing. That power has to be used thoughtfully, though. We aren’t trying to be unreasonable about anything.
They’ve done studies and, believe it or not, the franchise associations that have strong owner associations are better franchises. We do, for example, monthly best practice calls. We try to, we have an annual conference coming up next month. We’re going to do some breakout sessions. We’re going to do a best practice session at lunch. Our job is to do things that help the…you know, we have the same thing in mind.
P: I guess the franchisor is more concerned with increasing top-line revenue?
M: Right.
P: Where franchise owners want to increase what they put in their pocket. Or at least pay down their debt, etc. So, the earnings from the business.