Pillars of Franchising: How to franchise your business, Franchise Beacon

Topic: How to franchise your business.

Join host Ray Pillar, Owner of Molly Maid Aurora-Naperville, and co-host Fred McMurray of Mediavine Marketing, as they discuss the Pillars of running a successful franchise and interview franchise owners and experts.

Guest: Michael Peterson, of  President of Franchise Beacon and Global Franchise Services Corp

Listen to the show on Thursdays at 4:00pm Central time.

Call in to comment. (323) 580-5755. 

Our guest on the topic of How to franchise your business is Michael A. Peterson is President and Co-founder of Franchise Beacon, a leading franchise development firm, and President and Co-founder of Global Franchise Services Corp, a newly-launched franchise funding and international consulting firm.

Michael"s pre-franchise background is heavy in entrepreneurship; besides 3 years of military service, he has been an entrepreneur his whole life. His main introduction to franchising was through Play N Trade video games when he and a business partner were to develop and lead the franchise sales division. With no “expert” to turn to, they relied on each other to understand, document, and deploy the franchise sales process. Over the course of the first year in business, they grew the company from 4 units open and 4 more sold, to 30 units open and almost 100 more sold. By the end of 2007, the company had close to 150 units open, and in 2008 they were the fastest growing privately held company in Orange County, California.

As the financial crisis began to unfold at the same time the video game industry was crumbling,  Michael stepped into various roles within the company, first as a legal liaison, then to be the head of training and support, and finally, in 2012, he took over leadership of the company as the Chief Administrative Officer, overseeing what was by then a 120 store, multi-national retail franchise.

Approximately a year later, Michael and his then-business partner decided to take the small, nights-and-weekends company that they had been running and go full time. Since then, Franchise Beacon, under their leadership, has assisted 7 franchisors in the to-market process, and numerous others in the franchise sales process.

In 2016, after over ten years in literally every position in franchising, Michael began to give back to the industry he was so passionate about. First, he joined the International Franchise Professional’s Group’s Emerging Franchisor training team, on an as-needed, volunteer basis. In this, role he gives classes and one-on-one consulting in subjects as diverse as how best to work with franchise candidates from trade shows to how to prepare a retail store for the golden quarter. He has hosted roundtables at the International Franchise Association’s annual conference, been a speaker at the Murphy Business Brokers’ conference, and held training sessions, both in person and online, for various franchise broker’s associations.



Additionally, Michael is a voracious writer. He has a book, How and Why to Franchise Your Business, which has on numerous occasions held the number 1 spot for franchising on Amazon, is a consistent contributor to print and online publications like Young Fabulous and Self Employed, The Houston Chronicle, and AZ Central. Having just completed The Ultimate Guide To Franchise Sales, which is an short-form e-book available freely on Franchisebeacon.com, he is now working on his next full-length book, 20 questions that every young franchisor asks.

Recently, Michael has joined forces with a former client to fill a void they both recognized in the franchise industry. Though it is fairly simple to get funding for a start-up, a business that is in its first 24-36 months of life typically cannot get credit. Global Franchise Services, founded with long-time financier and financing expert Brian Birnbaum, aims to fill that goal by bringing systematic alternative lending solutions to franchisors, that can then in turn be deployed to their franchisees. Additionally, because Brian spent 20 years as the President of a franchisor which started in Canada and eventually and had, when he retired, over 100 locations between the United States and Canada, Global Franchise Services has an offering to help franchisors in Canada enter the US marketplace.

Both companies are under common ownership, and both companies have the same intent; to bring to solutions to would-be or young franchisors to help them franchise their business, expand their franchise offering and footprint, and become better service providers to their franchisees.

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