Discovering the Power of Community in Franchise Development with Brittney Lincoln

Welcome to the Wisdom of Women show.

We are dedicated to amplifying the voice of women in business.

A new model of leadership is emerging and we are here to amplify the voices of women leading the way.

I am your host, Coco Salman, five time founder, impact investor and creator of the Force for Good system.

Thank you for joining us today as we illuminate the path to unlocking opportunities and prosperity for women led enterprises by amplifying the voice and wisdom of women.

Today we have a special guest, someone here to talk to you about an opportunity in business that you might not have ever considered.

So today we have Brittany Lincoln, a dynamic leader in the franchising industry and she is the founder of Females in Franchising.

She's a partner in limitless franchise growth with a rich background that spans retail and advertising culminating in her pivotal role at Exponential where she significantly contributed to franchise expansion.

Britney helps franchises grow to national success.

Brittany's exceptional ability to connect with franchisers and her dedication to enhance community and small business impact through franchising makes her a standout leader.

Brittany lives in Denver with her family.

She embodies a balanced lifestyle enjoying outdoor activities and live music which adds a personal touch to her professional expertise.

So welcome Brittany.

Such a pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me.

Be here with you.

So as we always get started, our icebreaker question is what is a book written by a woman that has significantly influenced your life?

So I thought about this for a long time because I feel like I've read a lot recently.

But the book that I chose to highlight highlight is you are a badass.

I hope I can say that.

By Jen Sincero.

I just something about that book lit me up and if anyone's ever listened to it or if you haven't, I would highly recommend it.

She makes me want to run through a wall.

She reminds every woman that we all have what we need inside of us, right?

Maybe get out of your head, right?

You have everything you need to be successful.

But sometimes you got to remind yourself of everything you've done and everything you've accomplished and all those goals beehives that you have, you can still accomplish them, but you've got to believe.

So it's a big mindset book.

I travel a lot and I remember listening to it on a plane.

I got off the plane when I finished it and I was like, I am a badass and I need to own that and help more women feel that way.

So that's my book.

I love it.

You're gonna help create all kinds of Badasses out there.

Franchising badasses.

Right.

And you are a badass.

I would, I would just have to say, and I love that message that sometimes we as women in particular forget is that we already have everything we need.

Right.

Yeah, we do.

We have this well within us that we can lean on.

So that's, that's great.

You are a badass.

Be sure to pick that up, listeners to.

To inspire you to run through walls, which of course, when you're building a business, or a lot of walls that need running through, for sure.

So tell us, Brittany, how you got into the business of franchising and what is it about this model that has captured you, compelled you, and kept you so alive and focused over these years?

Yeah.

So I did what I joke anyone would do, but actually, years later realized not many people would do, started a business.

I had been in business school.

I had created business plans.

I felt like, okay, if I'm not finding a job, that'll be the next best thing.

I had worked in retail all through college.

Kind of felt like, wow, if I start a retail store, I can, I can shop for a living.

How great does that sound?

But I did a lot of research and I landed on starting a retail boutique in downtown Denver that specialize in gifts.

Because downtown Denver is a huge business center.

It's where all the law firms and oil and gas companies are.

But there were no hallmarks, no gift stores, nowhere to buy your coworker a card or a baby gift.

I enlisted the help of a friend who was also looking for a job at the time.

We came together and created what I believe was an amazing gift boutique.

We had baby gifts, jewelry, candles, all the above.

It was so fun.

I literally did fulfill that dream of shopping for a living.

I went to market in Atlanta, New York and la, and it was amazing.

Until it wasn't.

I basically experienced every messy entrepreneur thing you could experience in less than a year.

We opened in December, which started off great.

But then on New Year's Eve, there was a nightclub above us and they flooded our store.

It happened a few more times.

I was all in.

I wanted to move our store to another neighborhood.

But my other messy business life lesson was sometimes friendship and business don't mix.

And sometimes it can work.

For me, it didn't.

We are friends today, but at the time that was a texting thing in our relationship and we closed the store.

It was a really tough, heartbreaking decision at the time.

But later have talked to people like you and other female entrepreneurs and realized that it's a really good lesson, right?

There are no failures, there are just lessons.

Right?

You learn things, so learn so much in doing that.

I fell into advertising.

I always like to tell a story because it's funny.

I had an advertiser call me to get my store to advertise with them and I said, well, I'm closing.

And then they started chatting me up and offered me a job to sell advertising.

So I went from like, I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life, everything's over to oh, well, I guess I'll do this.

And I sold TV ads on screens and elevators through the Gannett company, which was a whole nother way to cut my teeth in sales.

100 cold call the day and after that is when I fell into franchising.

I have an uncle who is doing franchise consulting.

There was a service brand based here in Denver.

They had lost their salesperson.

And I went into interview and I had no franchising experience, but I had sales experience and I had owned my own business.

They gave me a shot, so appreciative to them for doing that.

And that was 13 years ago.

I have spent the last 13 years doing what I feel is the next best thing to owning my own business, which is helping other people become entrepreneurs through buying into franchising.

And I really have loved.

You know, I look back on having my store and had I known franchising was an option back then, maybe I would have gone that route.

And so for people out there that want the freedom, flexibility of being a business owner but don't have that great idea or maybe just a little more risk averse.

I kind of like to joke that franchising is like entrepreneurship light.

You know, you're still doing something that 99% of people won't do, but you have the plan, the playbook, a franchisor and a network of franchisees to connect with.

What lights me up about it the most is it can really be a beautiful thing, both for the franchisor, which I know we'll talk about, but especially for franchisees and business owners that want their own business but want that plan and playbook to follow.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

You know, and just pivoting for a moment, I'm going to speak directly to our listeners.

The reason I wanted Britney to come on is because Franchising can be such a wonderful option.

Both if you are feeling like the business you're in isn't quite right and you want more support and structure.

A great way to, you know, a great business model is to go become a franchisee.

I had shared with Brittany that I was a franchisee for a very short time with a haircutting franchise and decided it was not ultimately for me, but what I loved about it was how you immediately are a part of a community.

You say, I'll be a franchisee, and now I'm part of a community.

I have support.

And then you don't have to do all the hard decisions about who is my customer, what is my message.

All those things that can take years to figure out.

And this is already been fully baked and tested and utilized across lots of different people, customers, locations.

However, the franchise grows.

So it's really valuable, valuable just as a model to consider, to buy into.

And it's also for lots of great.

Lots of great businesses.

It could be a great way to scale.

So that is why, why I wanted so much for Brittany to come on and tell us what led you, Brittany, to become a partner in Limitless Franchise Growth.

You have a new project that you're launching, right.

The Females in Franchising.

So maybe tell us what you know these two businesses and your role in each of them and how these two entities can serve our listeners.

Yeah.

And they really are interconnected.

So I'm excited to tell you how one led to the other.

You had mentioned that I spent time with Exponential and my team there.

Some of us have worked together for 10 years.

I was on the team for six years.

And I feel like it's really rare in business when you find people that you truly love working with, enjoy personally, and just mesh and gel like a family.

Our CEO wanted to keep our team together and formed Limitless Franchise Growth last year.

When Exponential shifted their vision of how they wanted to do development, they were really focused internationally.

That wasn't our team's responsibility.

So our CEO formed Limitless Franchise Growth.

Literally took our entire team that had been together, Right.

Some of us six years, some of us 10 years.

We said, hey, we've helped some Exponential brands go from one location to 102 locations.

Club Pilates, which is probably going to be the brand that most people are familiar with, went from 23 locations to over a thousand.

How great would it be to now start doing that for other emerging franchises and help them grow and expand nationwide?

Because we have a great network with consultants who work with Candidates interested in buying franchises.

Right now, we have four amazing brands underneath our umbrella.

We're adding to it and really become their franchise sales development awarding team so they can focus on operations and supporting franchisees.

We focus on bringing on the right franchise partners.

I have some female coworkers there, and I will say this is not to knock men, but when I got into franchising, I was one of the only female salespeople.

I would go to conferences and people would think I was the receptionist or assistant to my boss.

And so, you know, which, you know, fine, but.

And it's gotten a lot better.

And there are more women entering the industry.

But I have loved having these women that I've worked with for the last six years to call and talk through things.

And I realized that as women, right, we seek out community like we are naturally right.

So drawn to each other as humans or tribal creatures.

But as women especially, community is important to us.

And there are amazing communities for women executives and women entrepreneurs, but neither of those feels like the right fit when you work in franchising or you own a franchise.

And so kind of my ladies that I work with now inspired me a little bit.

I joined some female networking groups, how we met, and I realized that while they're amazing and they're doing all the things that I want to do, they're not tailored to these unique nuances that exist in franchising, whether you're an executive or a franchise owner.

So my coworkers kind of inspired me to start Females and Franchising, which is going to be an online members only social networking platform.

We're going to start opening it up to women that work in franchising, our franchise consultants or our vendors.

Eventually we're going to have a cohort for female franchisees where they would be able to connect with other female franchise owners and also an incubator for female founders, as we've discussed.

So I can help some of these women that I've met along my journey with LFG who are not ready for my team but need some guidance around.

A, what does it take to franchise your business?

B, are you ready?

You know, see it?

Is it truly what you want?

And I think that's the conversation that's not quite happening enough, especially for female founders.

Did you even know this was an option for scale versus you investing or taking on investors?

What should you consider?

Right.

What do you.

What do you need to have?

What makes for a good franchisable business?

Yeah, no, that's.

That's.

So we're going to unpack a lot of that.

So, all right, so first of all, just for definition sake, what is a franchise?

What's a franchisee and what's a franchisor?

Yeah.

So I always like to share this because I think people get confused between licensing and franchising.

And that's a good way to, to differentiate licensed businesses.

There are tons of them in the US today.

But basically you're buying the IPO and, or excuse me, the IP and the name and then you get to run it however you want.

When you buy into a franchise, as we've talked and you experience for a short period of time with that hair care brand, right, you get everything.

You get the ip, you get support, you get the plan, you get help.

If it's brick and mortar and finding your real estate if it's not, you can run it from home.

Staffing, marketing, sales, operations.

I mean literally sort of the follow the bouncing ball and that network of other franchisees to connect with a lot of franchisors.

You know, run training not only for you, the owner, but all of your staff members.

Not only do they help you find them, they train them.

I mean you're getting everything.

And it's why the franchise fee you pay to buy into that is usually somewhere in the 40 to maybe 70k range.

Your total initial investment, huge spectrum there of are you home based service, are you expensive?

Brick and mortar, but over time you pay a royalty.

Now some licensing options have a royalty, but franchising is always going to have a royalty because there's just no way for a franchisor to charge you up front.

And that's it.

Everything that you get from them.

Yeah, no, you're getting a lot like you said, right.

We kind of joke, right?

True entrepreneurs want to reinvent the wheel.

They want to have control of everything.

My entrepreneurial light.

People that are interested in a franchise still want to be in control and be a business owner, but they want the plan, the playbook.

We like to say you're in business for yourself, but you're not by yourself because, oh, I love that.

Entrepreneurship can be very lonely as we can both relate to.

So when I explored franchising and this was probably almost 20 years ago, I was shocked by how many different kinds of franchises exist.

Right.

You get in your head like, oh, Subway, tell us, Brittany, about sort of give us the big wide vision of what kinds of businesses could be a franchise or are.

Yeah, and I'll hit you with a few stats too because I think it's super interesting.

I've looked this up.

Most recently, I want to say this might be as of the end of 23, but there are over 800,000 individual franchise businesses in the U.S.

think about your question of like, these are franchisees and someone might own multiples.

There are right now about 3,000, maybe just shy of 4,000 actual franchised businesses.

So these are going to be the franchisors.

These are the people that you, the prospective franchisee, are eventually franchise buyer, buy from.

So it's, it's a good portion of the GDP in America.

It's kind of a joke.

If you go out and drive around your town or go to dinner at your favorite restaurant, look it up, it might be a franchise.

I want to say there's a stat one in seven or eight businesses today is a franchise.

So it's a big industry.

You could own a grill cleaning franchise.

You could own a fitness, like, you know, the, with the food that, all of that.

Pet care, child care, home services.

Millennials are not very handy.

So home service is booming right now.

I paid someone to hang all the pictures in my house because I wanted it done right.

There's a franchise for that.

So it's kind of, you know, it's so wide.

And I will also say, as people think about investing in a franchise, those consultants that I mentioned, I would never recommend someone look at a franchise without a franchise consultant.

They will be like your real estate agent.

They will vet you, they will bring you vetted options.

They will hold your hand through the process, and it doesn't cost you anything to work with them.

And those are going to be people that will be part of females and franchising.

So if there are listeners wanting to go down that path, either research that on your own and find a franchise consultant, or you can reach out to us and we can help you get connected with one.

Yeah, I, I agree with that.

So I worked with a franchise consultant, and this is where I was just blown away.

We looked at all different kinds of business models and ultimately chose hair care for a variety of reasons at the time.

And it was, we talked to, I want to say I talked to at least eight or nine different franchise companies.

Potential business investments.

In the end, a franchise consultant gets paid by the franchisor, so they get a cut of whatever you pay to buy in.

So that's how they get paid.

Doesn't cost you anything.

You can meet with them and find out about it.

Once you become a franchisee, you get brought into this world of their systems, their processes, you know, their signage.

You do not have to do any of those very costly.

Oftentimes we make decisions based on our own desires, whereas this is based on what really works from consumers.

There, it's been tested and trialed.

The color is right, the font is right, the message is right.

It really is extraordinary.

So tell us then, for our listeners who are visionary women considering growth options, how might this business model work for a woman who is thinking about franchising her business?

I always like to start with a few main things that you know, and some of these might be glaring and obvious, but I feel like it's so important to talk about them.

And so first and foremost, is your business profitable?

Because as you can appreciate of having looked at the 8 or 9, I'm sure numbers were a big thing you looked at.

I usually tell the candidates I work with, do you like the brand and is it something you can get behind and feel good about owning?

Do the numbers make sense?

Everyone has different ROI goals, investment goals, but do they meet your ROI goals and then do you like the people behind it?

Because franchising is a little bit like marriage.

Most franchise agreements are 10 years long.

You can sell, but you want to make sure, right?

That's sort of my trifecta.

Doesn't make money.

Your business needs to be profitable or you're not going to be able to bring franchisees.

Is it repeatable?

Some of you might have amazing businesses, but if it's tied to you, it's tied to your market, it's tied to some secret sauce that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Your business might not be right for franchising.

So is it repeatable?

Can you teach other people to do it?

Can it work?

If you're in New York City, that is not Main street usa, right?

So can it work?

And sometimes that's the best, best path to go down is can you open your business in another market where you, the founder, are not and see success and that would tell you, right?

Is it repeatable?

And then lastly, and I think this is so timely today, just there's so many conversations about responsible franchising or authenticity, right.

With business owners and things like that.

I believe you have to be a founder and a brand that people want to follow.

Your brand matters, you as a founder matter.

People want to buy into a story.

And if you don't have a story or you're not a person that people can get behind, maybe this is a little bit of tough love.

I've seen businesses that are good, solid businesses not have the best founder and it doesn't work.

It's a tug of war.

So those would be my three big, big things.

And then I would say beyond that, either my company LFG or other companies out there, I would say find someone that can help you navigate.

Because franchising is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.

There's intricacies with, right.

FTC law, franchise law.

There is, you know, a lot that goes into becoming a franchise.

You don't get to just sell in every state.

Some states have their own regulations.

I would also highly recommend working with either our company or a company that specializes in that.

And we help people all the time figure out is this the right time?

Should we even franchise?

Right.

We view ourselves as educators of like let's help people understand if this is even a path they should chart down, let alone engage our services.

Makes sense.

Okay, so again it's sort of stating the obvious, but is your business profitable?

Nobody's going to want to replicate your business if it's not profitable.

And I do remember going through those numbers and getting a sense of when you, when you sit down with that franchise consultant, they give you a lot of data about each one of the options you could invest in.

They'll tell you things like how much does it cost in total to get up and running your franchise fee plus whatever else you need to get and buy, or if you need to do a build out or find space.

And then they'll also tell you like, what is the average?

Like what do people, what's the top line average?

You know, what's the, then of course, what's the royalty that you're going to pay?

And you know, what can you expect from, you know, if it's a storefront, from each storefront, what, what can you expect to generate in terms of cash flow?

And so you can't really say that you're profitable, you're not.

Right.

Like you have to have real data, you know, to show it.

So if it's something you want to do, get that profitability really churning so that you can demonstrate it.

And then of course you need to be that founder, that brand accompany a culture.

Right.

And that's where we talk the course for good model the importance of your purpose.

Having a core purpose, having a long term vision, having impact goals, having an inception story, how you began those stories because that creates the magic behind it.

With a franchise you really have to have those pieces and then is it repeatable?

Can you open in another market?

Could another person follow the recipe?

Really deep, really good stuff.

What are some key indicators aside, are there Other things that you feel like you look for in a business that is ready to transition to a franchise model, how can you see whether your company aligns with the idea of creating a franchise model?

Yeah, so demand is one of those things.

Is your product, is your service, is what you're offering in demand, not just where you are.

Right.

But do we see a demand?

You know, nationwide competition is always an interesting conversation because you know, there's always two ways to view it, right.

If there are other people doing what you're doing, it's proof of concept.

But what's your point of differentiation?

Do you have proprietary software?

Do you have a proprietary way of doing things?

Do you have a relationship on a national level that would give your franchisees a leg up?

Is there a moat, we like to say, right?

Is there a secret sauce of how you're doing it?

How many burger franchises, sandwich franchises, fitness franchises are out there?

But there are one success succeeding.

There's the franchisor component of like, do they have that proprietary software, those relationships?

And then there's the franchisee.

Execution is everything.

I love Tony Robbins.

He's done so many talks on this.

You can have knowledge, but can you execute?

Right?

He does all this.

Right.

Execution eats.

Knowledge is lunch seven days a week, twice on Sunday.

And so that's the other big thing, right, that you'll see sometimes.

And I will say, as a founder, one of the biggest things you have to prepare yourself for is you are no longer a business owner.

You are a franchisor.

You now have lots of BPs that you have to take care of and it's very different.

And you also have to know that you might have some problem children and how are you going to handle that?

Or just the people that aren't executing.

And there are ways to handle that and there are ways you can help someone exit gracefully if they're just not the right fit for you and your company.

But those are some of the other things I would say, again, competition is not a bad thing.

If you're doing things a little bit different or you have, you know, some.

Something proprietary, I would say technology, especially these days, with how quickly it's moving, it would probably shock you.

How many franchisors, and I don't care if they're retail service, use off the shelf technology.

The ones that have homegrown their technology are doing really well.

Well, that says a lot, right?

Like these are some specifics.

So they're tech forward.

They have their own operational sort of special way of doing things that sets them Apart allows them to do their job either in a way that's customer perceived greatness or value, operational efficiency, whatever the system brings in.

You also brought up the ideas too that you probably need to be somebody who wants to build a community.

Right?

Like you're creating a community, you're going to be like the mothership, if you will.

And you have to want that, right?

Yeah, you do.

And it can be so rewarding for any founders out there listening.

If you have a great business, you've probably been hit by private equity, you had angel investors, regular investors, you might have people sitting at your cap table today and you understand the give and take of that.

Franchising, despite having some of the double edged sword that I mentioned, comes along with this rewarding ability to help other people become business owners.

I mean literally like goosebumps, like maybe change their life.

I have seen so many people over the years change their life, their family's life, build generational wealth with franchising.

And if you're a founder where you said it so eloquently like you want to create a community, you love the idea that you recognize that not everyone's gonna fall in line and that's okay.

That is the beautiful part of franchising.

If you have this amazing business, rather than taking on investors and just growing corporate location or corporate store, think about becoming a franchisor and the ripple effect you could have on helping other people.

Right.

Become business owners, change their life, maybe change their kids lives because they bought into something that you created and proved out and they're just there to execute on it.

The other thing I'll mention from my own experience with franchising is that I was able to sell my franchise immediately.

Like, you know, like it had an inherent value.

And I was able to get, I invested, did it for six months, I found a location, signed a lease, didn't do the build out, got my money back.

I was able to, to sell my franchise and I was able to transfer the lease and the other, the other new franchise, you know, the person who bought the franchise from me or however we did it through the franchisor, like paid me for it.

Very seldom can you invest in a business and get a business started and then sell it for what you paid for it.

Yeah.

Six months later.

That doesn't ever happen.

You mentioned before that risk piece, it's also cool because then you know, you know, if you are, you know, developing a franchise, selling it to others and they're growing the value, the total value of the brand as the one who owns the corporate is also growing exponentially.

There's just win, win, win.

Yeah.

And there's always options.

Right.

I mean, there are franchisors that have exited to private equity.

Your goal is to build an exit.

Franchising is a path for that.

There are franchisees that build a big enough portfolio, that person might have owned others and they're like, oh, heck yes, I'll buy yours and add it to my portfolio.

There have also been brands that franchised and then bought them all back and went corporate again because they decided, you know what, we're better at running these things.

So, you know, not to talk about, you know, when it goes wrong.

But I would say, you know, I think as a founder, knowing that you have options, that's another one of my big messages.

Right.

Of just people don't always know or they think that franchising is only for the subways and the McDonald's of the world.

Right, Right.

I mean, there's business services, all kinds of things.

You can go out and probably query and do a Google search or talk to chat and have them list 100 different types of franchises and you'd be blown away with what's out there.

So what are some of the major advantages and disadvantages of the franchise model for business expansion and how should founders weigh these factors when considering whether or not to franchise?

Yeah, if we talk scalability and time to scale, you could scale much faster through franchising.

You are getting people to buy into your brand with their money, but you have to support them.

Right.

And you have to have those makings of a good franchise.

So, so it goes well.

So I'd say, you know, time to scale, grow.

I mean, there have been brands that have grown to 100 units, even 100 open locations in a year.

It can be this rocket ship growth that might take you years to find enough investors or just build one location, one service provider at a time.

So I'd say that's the huge pro, the ability to scale to get your product, your service, your thing in more markets more quickly and do it through people that are invested.

And I mean the really great thing about a royalty and a franchise is it is a mutually beneficial relationship.

Right.

If I'm getting 7% of your revenue, I want you to do a million dollars, I want you to do $2 million.

Right.

I, I don't want you, I don't want you to fail.

It's, you know, tends to be the good franchisors.

Right.

Are really aligned.

I would say the cons and the struggles that I see people have is they sell a lot of franchises before they have the support, the infrastructure, the financial backing to support all those.

Are you going to make money selling franchises?

Yes.

Do you want to sell a bunch and then run?

No, it's more of a, like the brands that I see succeed have it.

If you build it, they will come.

Let's over engineer our support, our technology, our marketing, planning for the future.

Again, like, you know, the whole, you know, analogy of like now you have a bunch of kids now.

I mean, you just, you do your best to vet and get the right people in the system.

But I'd say probably the biggest downside is the human condition.

You're going to get people that are amazing and do everything you tell them to and you're going to get people that don't follow the model.

It's always going to be your fault as the franchisor, even though everyone knows they need to look in the mirror and they're not doing it.

Franchise agreements are written to protect the brand, to protect the franchisor.

So I would also say don't let that scare you.

Just let it be known that you want to make sure that you have it structured to where when that naughty child is acting up, you can step in and protect your brand.

And most agreements will be that way.

But still going to put some gray hairs on your head.

Totally, totally.

Well, that helps us really, I think, understand, you know, some of the, the pros, the cons.

You know, I also think about how if you're a franchise, if you, sorry, if you're an entrepreneur, founder that likes to fly by the seat of your pants all the time, probably aren't best suited, right?

Because you, you, you have, maybe this would be considered a con on somebody's list, you know, a, on your pros and cons list where you really, when you decide to become a franchisor, you have to be more deliberate with your choices.

You have to stick to things, you have to follow things through.

It's that, you know, you can't just come up with an idea every day and roll it out and you've got this one singular team that will do things your way.

What are your thoughts on that, Brittany?

Yeah, I think that's super fair.

And, and look, for what it's worth, some people franchise their brand and then move on and ride off into the sunset to create another brand.

You could also, that's right, a private equity investor where you can still stay in that, but you gotta have that operational person if it's mom and dad.

If mom's saying ice cream for dinner, Dad's gotta say after you eat your vegetables.

Right.

So I do like that you brought that up because I will say a lot of true entrepreneurs are that ultra high flying creative.

And then as soon as it's like, well, we need an org chart.

We need to document all of our processes and procedures.

We need to replicate, copy and paste this.

It's like, whoa, that's not what I signed up for.

I want to come up with new ideas.

So it can still work if you bring in.

Right.

That COO or that person that can handle that for you.

Quite frankly, what I would say in my 13 years, I've seen a lot of times is that true.

Founder often exits.

They may stay on for a few years and some of them have gone on to create another franchise and another franchise and they create their own, you know, flywheel, copy and paste.

But yes, I would say if that's something you love about being a business owner and entrepreneur, then franchising might not be right.

Or you're gonna have to get yourself a real good COO that can run it, bring it back down to earth when you need to be.

Yeah.

Or you could move into the board role right where and you know, like, it's just.

So then your company becomes just another part of your portfolio.

It's not your everyday.

Yeah, absolutely.

Different ways.

So I love this concept.

I'm excited to share this with our listeners.

To wrap it up today, what is the wisdom you've gathered along your journey of being an entrepreneur, working with founders and working with franchisors?

What is the wisdom you would want to pass on today to the visionary women listening right now?

I think the wisdom that I've learned over the years is it's really all about the relationships that you form along the way.

They say your network is your net worth.

Right.

All those cheesy sayings.

But it's so important, I think today when technology and AI and all these, we are still human beings, you just never know where one conversation.

Right.

Could get you.

You never know where showing up at that event, you know, could get you.

I would say, meet people, form relationships, It's, I believe, never going anywhere.

It's how all the business is going to get done.

And I think as women, we tend to have this do it yourself mentality.

The guys have their golf outings, their cigar lounges, and that's why you have this rise of amazing online networking groups.

And so I would also say join those if you haven't I'm a part of a few of them.

It's why I want to build females and franchising.

I have learned so much and come so far in my career by connecting with other women.

Empowered women empower women.

So that's, you know, I would say it's all about the relationships and if you can't do it in person, then do it through online social networks.

But find a way to connect because so much can happen when you do.

Love it.

Empowered women empower women.

So for everybody listening, if you are interested in learning more about franchising, whether you want to be a franchisee or a franchisor, you can reach Brittany by going to www.femoralinfranchising.com.

you can learn about the network, the community she's creating there.

You can also find her on LinkedIn, have her LinkedIn and her other socials right here in the in the description below and you can reach out to her and talk to her about what your business is and and if it's if it's a business that you'd like to transform into a franchise or if you already are a franchise and you would like to move it forward and help it grow and expand nationwide and have your next hundred franchisees in place.

So thank you.

Brittany, thank you so much for joining us today on the Wisdom of Women Show.

Thank you for illuminating the path to unlocking opportunities for growth, for prosperity for women led enterprises.

And to all you trailblazers listening, please be sure to follow like and share the Wisdom of Women show on your favorite listening or viewing platform.

To infuse more of your wisdom into your business.

Take the Growth Readiness quiz at a CourseForGood biz quiz and uncover where your insight is needed most in your business.

The world is made better by women led business.

Let's go make the world a better place.

Cheers.