North Carolina Feature Articles
Looking for a franchise opportunity in North Carolina? Whether you're a first-time business owner or a seasoned entrepreneur, North Carolina offers exciting potential for franchise success. From food and beverage to retail and services, the diverse economic landscape in North Carolina is ripe for franchise opportunities. Explore the best franchise options today and take the next step toward business ownership in North Carolina.
Informative articles to support business buyers, franchisees, and franchisors in North Carolina.
Conventional wisdom has it that young franchises are jumping on the area developer bandwagon to grow quickly and establish their presence in the most efficient way.
- Ripley Hotch and Debbie Selinsky
- 3,529 Reads 137 Shares
Innovation has played a progressive role in franchising since the beginning. Over the years, there have been new spins and fresh angles on all kinds of products, services, and concepts. As if there were any doubt, consider the more than 300 new franchise concepts introduced last year alone, according to franchise research firm FRANdata.
- Kerry Pipes
- 5,129 Reads 182 Shares
The Home Depot is the big fish in retail hardware and home improvement centers. Founded by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, their first store, opened in Atlanta in June 1979. Today, Home Depot has more than 2,100 stores and 350,000 employees with annual revenues approaching $100 billion. When it comes to U.S. retailers, Home Depot's annual sales rank second only to those of Wal-Mart.
- Franchising.com
- 61,259 Reads 15 Shares
Technology companies have always searched for a way to integrate functions in various devices or programs. The advantages to a provider are obvious: more functions mean more charges that can be made, or greater customer loyalty.
- Ripley Hotch
- 5,926 Reads 1,014 Shares
In 2007, chances are there's a sign franchise near you--offering customers a wider array of choices than ever before, thanks to continuing technological advances, especially in communications and digital imaging.
- Eddy Goldberg
- 2,848 Reads 43 Shares
Building customer loyalty is no easy task in today's highly competitive business world where consumers will change brands or products to save even a few pennies. Businesses from mom and pop operations to multi-national conglomerates are routinely looking for new and unique ways not only to recruit customers, but to turn them into loyal, repeat shoppers who also spread the word. As numerous studies have shown, it's much more cost-effective to keep existing customers than to find new ones.
- Kerry Pipes
- 3,058 Reads 5 Shares
As more franchise brands push outward from their local or regional base seeking growth on the national stage, choosing the right city or designated market area (DMA) is always a critical factor in success.
- Eddy Goldberg
- 4,169 Reads 14 Shares
Keld Alstrup went to Canada in 1968 to see the world outside his native, tiny Denmark. He ended up working for Ford and then Volvo. So things, as he says "worked out."
- Eddy Goldberg and Kerry Pipes
- 2,912 Reads 5 Shares
I. Rule Overview Basic Requirement: Franchisors must furnish potential franchisees with written disclosures providing important information about the franchisor, the franchised business and the franchise relationship, and give them at least ten...
- FTC.gov
- 8,403 Reads
Everyone's heard of mystery shopping. It's that practice where an unknown "customer" checks up on a business when they're not looking. Mystery shopping can uncover successful practices and, unfortunately, embarrassing deficiencies. But the good news is that the collected information can be used to help those operations and procedures that need improvement and correction. The data also can provide affirmation for those practices companies are performing well.
- Kerry Pipes
- 4,154 Reads 4 Shares
Pets and pet-related businesses are among today's hottest franchise opportunities--especially in the U.S., where pet owners are notorious for pampering their dogs, cats, birds (and even their rodents, reptiles, amphibians, and fish).
- Eddy Goldberg
- 3,225 Reads 17 Shares
Fish tales about the "big one that got away" are legendary. Franchise salespeople have their own stories of big ones that got away, too. But the good ones also tell tales of the near-misses they pulled from the fire-- and of how, at the eleventh hour, whether through fancy footwork or a simple stroke of luck, they landed the deal after all.
- Debbie Selinsky
- 5,256 Reads 3 Shares
Being an area developer, most outsiders would think, is a guaranteed stress-builder. After all, minding a number of businesses--let alone starting them up--has more problems in more directions than your average C-level exec faces every day.
- Linda C. Ray
- 3,003 Reads 3 Shares
The Home Depot is the big fish in retail hardware and home improvement centers. Founded by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, their first store, opened in Atlanta in June 1979. Today, Home Depot has more than 2,100 stores and 350,000 employees with annual revenues approaching $100 billion. When it comes to U.S. retailers, Home Depot's annual sales rank second only to those of Wal-Mart.
- Eddy Goldberg
- 61,529 Reads 455 Shares
If you're looking to add women franchisees--and according to every statistic, you should be (more are looking, and more have the means and skills), then you should know what women want (our apologies to the movie).
- Linda C. Ray
- 4,574 Reads 25 Shares
The numbers vary, depending on who you ask, but the result is the same: The outlook for the continuity of family-owned businesses is bleak. So where's the disconnect? What goes wrong? With all the years of hard work and sacrifice that go into building a family-owned business, why don't more founders succeed in passing it on to the next generation--and the next? And what can a founder do to increase the odds the business will survive?
- Eddy Goldberg
- 6,304 Reads
Retail is huge. Franchising is huge. And, of course, holiday shopping is huge. Add all that up, and opportunities for retail franchises are tremendous--especially in the last four to six weeks of the year.
- Eddy Goldberg
- 2,488 Reads 1,014 Shares
In the $150 billion worldwide hair-care industry, Regis Corp. rules the roost. Regis has 55,000 corporate and 33,000 franchise employees in its more than 11,000 salons worldwide. Company brands in North America include Regis Salons, MasterCuts, Trade Secret, Supercuts, and Cost Cutters. (The company has about 60 brands gloally.) Regis owns a four percent domestic and two percent worldwide market share and predicts $2.4 billion in revenue in fiscal 2006.
- 18,384 Reads 3,290 Shares
They may not be the most visible, or even among the highest-paid executives in the company. But in the daily trenches of running a franchise system, chief operating officers, or COOs, are the go-to people for other executives, staff, and franchisees. Most come in early and stay late, taking only brief vacations and then doing so with cell phone in hand.
- Debbie Selinsky
- 6,752 Reads 1 Shares
If someone had told Heidi Morrissey 20 years ago that she'd wind up as heir apparent to the family business, Kitchen Tune-Up, she would have probably rolled her eyes in that way that only a teenager can. And if her four siblings had dared to suggest that she, of them all, was most like their master-salesman father, she'd have repeated the eye roll and added an indignant snort.
- Debbie Selinsky
- 4,021 Reads 10 Shares
The legend is familiar: In 1950, Bill Rosenberg opens the first Dunkin' Donuts store in Quincy, Mass. In 1955, he licenses the first franchise. In 1960, his dream of franchisors and franchisees working together is realized in the founding of the International Franchise Association. In the coming years he would become involved in philanthropy and be called the "father of franchising as we know it today" by Nation's Restaurant News
- 29,114 Reads 1 Shares
Franchising can provide an opportunity for you to clean up. Whether it's inside your home or the clothes on your body, there are many choices. Busy Americans are driving explosive growth in the cleaning industry. With little time of their own to clean, U.S. consumers are spending more than $9 billion a year on residential cleaning-a figure expected to grow at a rate of more than 20 percent a year.
- 2,580 Reads
So many companies today train their employees to "duplicate" the customer experience, to treat every person who walks through the door exactly the same way. I have seen too many companies fail using this strategy. Forget about what is easier to train your employees to do: not every customer wants the same experience.
- Thom Winninger
- 4,185 Reads 12 Shares
"If you're not moving forward, you're standing still," goes the old business axiom. In franchising, expansion is one way of moving forward. Whether you're a start-up organization or a player who's been around a while, growth through new sites is an objective--and when it comes to successful site selection tactics and techniques, consider the following approaches.
- Kerry Pipes
- 4,286 Reads 1,014 Shares
A healthy economy and a continued demand for both long- and short-term employees is driving personnel agencies and temporary employment services-and they love the work. Staffing services is one of the fastest-growing industries in the country. In 2004, the staffing industry generated more than $63 billion in revenues, with temporary staffing accounting for approximately 90 percent and permanent placement contributing the remainder.
- 2,292 Reads 4 Shares
After more than 20 highly successful years in the painting business, Charlie Chase still finds himself--several times a day--trying to convince people that painters aren't just guys who can't hold down a job.
- Debbie Selinsky
- 7,728 Reads 352 Shares
After 25 years in franchising, Russ Cooper, age 55, retired--but it didn't stick. "I flunked retirement, basically," he says, laughing.
- Eddy Goldberg
- 9,945 Reads
Chew on the numbers presented in this article and consider the implications for you and your organization from the perspective of your customers and employees--the people you hire and the people you sell to. You will see great numbers to keep in mind when positioning your company, looking for your next location, and developing your next marketing push.
- Mauricio Velasquez
- 4,398 Reads 3 Shares
For many years--like the ancient bones of "Lucy" discovered by Donald Johanson in 1974 and long thought to be mankind's first ancestor--Albert Singer, who founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company in 1851, has been credited with being the first franchisor in the United States. The designation was likely given because his was the most recognized name of the early pioneers that people still remembered.
- Michael Seid
- 28,505 Reads 26 Shares
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