In an increasingly well-connected world, the diversity of the entrepreneurial community—of its thoughts, of its ideas, its backgrounds and experiences—is not only growing in numbers, but also simply in visibility and importance. Diversity covers all aspects of the hospitality industry and it’s not just “the right thing to do”—it’s good for business too.

Franchise terminations are not usually surprise attacks, but are instead the unfortunate culmination of a steadily deteriorating relationship, often with missed salvaging opportunities on both sides.

Four key principles of effective community include listening skills, the two-way process, trust in the relationship and the mutual alignment of goals.

The franchise industry today has grown significantly and now represents such a broad spectrum of business concepts and market segments that it is nearly impossible to define any single strategy or organizational structure best suited for the task of franchisee support.

Consistency lays the foundation and creates expectations, employees, franchisees, vendors and customers.

Top franchisors offer tips for honoring operators and celebrating excellence within the brand.

In real estate, they say three things are important: location, location, location. In franchising, as evidenced by these female entrepreneurs, the keys to success are: perseverance, perseverance, perseverance.

A highly successful, energized group of franchisees is critical to the success and growth of any brand. When franchisees are seeing their desired results through the help of an active and engaged franchise support system, their success becomes contagious and begins to create “brand evangelists” to further drive growth in the brand. These brand evangelists promote your brand for you–they assist in selling franchises, driving increases in system-wide sales and in decreasing store closings and transfers. Their attitude becomes infectious, thereby spreading their success throughout the entire system. But this brand enthusiasm is not created overnight.  It is  developed and nurtured only by providing ongoing, effective franchisee support. The following are the five key components of a first-class franchise support system:

As competition for new franchisees becomes heated, advertising and promotional materials directed to prospective franchisees is likely to get more creative.

If a franchise company has not currently implemented a conversion franchising program, it is missing out on a great opportunity to increase the number of quality franchisees to their brand.  A main reason to implement a conversion franchising program today is because hundreds of new franchise companies have entered into the franchising world over the last few years, making the pool of prospects to reach out to much smaller for each franchise company.  With a smaller pool of prospects, as well as more difficult funding issues for new franchisees, conversion franchising can add a new dimension to any franchise company. It will help franchises continue building their brand in addition to what they are already doing to attract new franchise owners.