99: Finding The Best Emerging And Established Brands With Stan Friedman

<p>On this episode of the Franchise Secrets podcast, Erik is joined by Stan Friedman to discuss how to find the best emerging and established brands.</p> <p>As a franchising veteran and high-level executive at several companies, Stan brings a wealth of experience to the table. Whether it’s finding the best emerging and established brands to get involved with or how to beat out the bigger brands, Stan has seen and done it all in franchising.</p> <h3><strong>Listen to Erik and Stan talk about emerging and established brands:</strong></h3> <p><strong>Introduction </strong></p> <p><strong>How Stan found franchising (2:10)</strong></p> <p>Stan explains how he entered the world of franchising after an unstable career in radio. He went through a program that taught him how to market and offer franchises to large real estate brokers who were suffering under the reign of RE/MAX. </p> <p><strong>Competing with the big players (4:26)</strong></p> <p>At the time, RE/MAX was snapping up the best agents by offering competition commission deals. In working for ERA Franchises, Stan offered a better alternative to those who didn’t want to cross over to RE/MAX.</p> <p><strong>Conversion franchising (6:36)</strong></p> <p>Stan talks about the method of conversion franchising, which is identifying the top players in a field and going after their base. He touches on how this is a strategic, proactive and more efficient alternative to just advertising to everyone and hoping for the best. </p> <p><strong>How Google changed franchising (10:15)</strong></p> <p>Stan discusses how the internet, and the wealth of information that comes with it, has changed the franchising game. The franchisor and franchisee dynamic has shifted, giving franchisees more power. The franchisor needs to adapt to meeting potential franchisees on their terms. </p> <p><strong>Researching the right franchisees (12:57)</strong></p> <p>Stan emphasizes the importance of finding the right initial franchisees by researching their backgrounds. Ultimately, the success of t