Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine 2013 Buyer's Guide | Seite 3

MULTI-UNIT

EDITOR’S
NOTE

Buyer’s Guide

Multi-Unit

PARTNERS
Franchisors & Multi-Unit Franchisees
team up for growth

M

ulti-unit franchisees dominate
today’s marketplace, controlling more total units than their
single-unit counterparts—and an increasing number are operating multiple brands.
This steady shift over the past
decade led Franchise Update Media Group
in 2004 to debut a new magazine—MultiUnit Franchisee—to serve the growing
generation of multi-unit operators, hungry
for information to help them expand both
their number of units and their number
of brands.
The first issue of the new magazine featured multi-brand franchisee
John Prince, a former stockbroker whose
franchise holdings then included
Applebee’s, Aaron’s, Famous Dave’s, and
a Hooters (in Salt Lake City, no less!).
We also featured Jim Gendreau, who in
1981 sold 70 franchises in 9 months for
Cost Cutters, and then became a serial
franchisee for several brands, including
operating 54 Cost Cutters of his own. We
also told the story of Tom Larson, who had
20 lodging and restaurant units spread
among 7 brands. We led the story with this:
“Besides size, what makes these
area developers different from other
franchise owners? Why do they amass
so many units and brands while others
are content with one site, maybe two or

three? How do they manage to manage
more brands than other people can handle
units? Who are these guys?”
Since then we’ve interviewed and
profiled hundreds of “these guys” (and
women); heard from experts on every
facet of the business; and compiled lists
and rankings that chronicle the fantastic
growth in not only the numbers, but also
in the professionalism of these operators
and their organizations.
Our annual Multi-Unit Franchising
Conference also has grown over the years,
in both the number and the quality of attendees, panelists, speakers, and exhibitors.
Our online multi-unit business intelligence
offerings have also expanded greatly with
monthly newsletters and websites focused
on multi-unit franchising—paralleling the
growth and serving the growing needs of the
expanding ranks of multi-unit and multibrand franchisee organizations.
Franchisors, in tandem with the
growing base of multi-unit operators, have
recognized this change and responded by
altering their sales approach, even their
FDDs, to accommodate multiple-unit sales
to experienced franchisees. The “threepack” has grown to the five-pack and
10-pack, and we’re hearing more about
deals to develop upwards of 50 or 100 units
in territories that grow larger each year.

Many of these multi-unit operators are only too pleased to share what
they know with each other through our
in-depth magazine profiles, taking time
out from their bu 7