Chain Leader

Well, at least I know three of you are reading this! Don’t worry, I have my blog on the world still being flat coming out next week.

I promised I wouldn’t use this opportunity to get up on my soapbox, but when we’ve trimmed our gas and electric usage by over 40 percent, our accountant ran home and changed his light bulbs. To each there own though, I understand. Until then we’ll discuss one of the most important topics in franchising... location, location, location!

It’s common knowledge that the location of a business can dramatically impact the success (or failure) of an establishment. Besides the obvious, like nearest cross streets, business–vs.-residential mix, and traffic direction through an area, there is a lot to be said about the demographics that an area possesses. Modern techno...Read More

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Societal trends have steered business practices for hundreds of years. When consumers express interest, businesses respond to the call. So it's no big surprise to see companies try to grab hold of the marketing value of the "green" movement. Unfortunately, it creates consumer skepticism and, as a result, true green brands lose their credibility because of others' bandwagon approach.

As a socially conscious company, you should put your money where your mouth is. After all, reality is the dividing line between those walking the walk and those talking the talk. So tell the world about what you are doing that distinguishes your green practices from the wannabes. Stating the truth about what you're doing for the better good of society will enable you to earn the loyalty of the socially conscious community. 

Tell your green story without th...Read More

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I speak from personal experience when I stress the importance of having a good quality of life in the workplace. FACT OF LIFE: Unless you've won the lottery, we all must spend eight hours a day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, and, on average, about 40 years of our lives earning our residency on this planet. That makes for an awful lot of time spent burning the grindstone. 

The Pizza Fusion gang recently ran a marathon in San Diego, where they helped raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

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It's time to do a change of hats this week! After spending a few weeks on the road, visiting new franchisees and scouting out potential locations, it's time to wear the cap of fund raiser!

One of the biggest challenges new organizations face has to be raising capital. Despite all of the press you garner and units you sell, none of it really matters unless you have the capital behind you to support your growth. 

I am only speaking from personal experience here. We looked at our funding strategy in three phases. Initially, we needed seed money for startup costs such as opening our corporate offices and building a support team on the sales, marketing, communications and training fronts. We developed our three-year projections to establish our goals for our first real round of fund raising via a private offering with La Salle, an investment banking...Read More

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I wanted to apologize to everyone for my delay on my follow-up post. I just returned from a whirlwind trip across the country and back with my partner, Michael. In return, I promise to keep you reading for a while!

As many of you have surely experienced, franchising a new concept is whirlwind. There are no real guidelines, handbooks or set of rules to follow. There is no plan laid out for us on how we are "supposed" to navigate this journey. Each and every day poses a set of new challenges for a young franchising group, and I sincerely hope that this blog will serve as inspiration to other up-and-coming businesses and franchises, as well as a reminder to the "Big Dogs" about what it is like starting from the ground up.

I realize that as CEO of Pizza Fusion, I have a responsibility to my partne...Read More

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Hello and thank you for checking out my blog. To kick this off, I'd like to provide you with a little insight into Pizza Fusion and how we got started.

Pizza Fusion was born from a desire to make a difference. My partner, Michael Gordon and I were venting over a couple beers one day about our endeavors at the time. I was running my design firm, Stellar Concepts and Design, which I'd been doing for the last 10 years, and Michael was managing a real-estate firm he'd founded to capitalize on the then booming South Florida real-estate market. Neither of us was very passionate about what we were doing and thought how great it'd be to start a side project that will meet our demand for a rewarding professional experience. We both liked pizza, cared about the environment, and I was eating organic at the time. So, we thought, how great wo...Read More

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