Why building a customer experience is critical for franchisees, even in our digital age.

By Ben Davis

When it comes to running a franchise, 95 percent of the factors for success are the same as those for a small business owner: maintaining cash flow, finding new customers and retaining quality employees, to name a few. Having the benefits of being both an entrepreneurial business owner and interdependent with your franchisor can lead to exceptional success for a franchisee. If you can take shamelessly, learn from others, give freely and share your learnings, you’ve set yourself up for success.

Read more: Keys to Success

Why it’s so important to cast a unified corporate vision amid competing priorities.

By Bucky Cook

Competing visions and ideas are fundamental to any growing brand. As your corporate team grows, you’ll start to notice your resources being pulled in a million different directions as each department pursues its own goals for the brand. There’s an old joke that production tells marketing to “sell something we can make,” while marketing tells production to “make something we can sell.” This tension presents both a challenge and an opportunity for brands, and how leadership chooses to navigate it will often set the course for longterm success or failure.

Read more: The Franchise Team

Here are three ways for a franchise to finance its growth plans.

Which will work best for you?

By Cramer Soebbing

Establishing cash flow is a main objective for franchisees. When an established franchisee is looking to expand their business and, in turn, their cash flow, inevitably the main question becomes: What is the best way to finance my growth plans? Whether owners look to grow their businesses through unit expansion, equipment updates or unit remodels, there are three principal means for franchisees to fund their growth:

Read more: Financing Your Growth

Get the word out: Four tips for effective email communication during a crisis.

By Colby Cavanaugh

Many of our franchise customers have found themselves faced with the task of using mass email to communicate vital information during a crisis situation.

Though email marketing is typically considered a means of pushing out promotions or content to a list of subscribers, it’s also one of the most effective ways to quickly reach a large group of people with an important message. Perhaps you need to let customers know that certain stores will be closed until further notice, or maybe you need to share specific evacuation details with employees at some of your franchise locations. Regardless of the need, here are four best practices you should follow to ensure effective email communications during an emergency.

Read more: Crisis Communication