The Ultimate Guide to Responsible Franchising

Preface

I have spent an entire lifetime in franchising. My first job out of college was a rank-and-file, low-man-on-the-totem-pole franchisee recruitment manager in 1985 for a small Regional sandwich chain we now all know as Subway. Over the next few years, I witnessed Subway grow from a Regional brand to a National brand sporting a household name. For the next 17 years I moved up through the ranks, working for different brands and eventually making it into the franchisor C-suite. In 2002 I left the corporate world to start a consultancy I still manage called Franchise Performance Group (FPG), specializing in franchising best practices, particularly helping franchisors build their brand by recruiting top franchisee talent.

Prior to my starting a business, there was little entrepreneurship in my family. I grew up in the lower-middle-class town of West Haven, Connecticut, in a highly ethnic Irish and Italian, largely blue-collar neighborhood. My dad was one of the few college-educated men in our neighborhood, and the first college-educated man in the Mathews family. I am the second oldest of five boys, raised in a close-knit tribe consisting of my immediate family and my grandparents, who lived only two miles away. This certainly would go on to influence my future, because when properly executed, franchising is more than a business relationship – it’s also a close-knit tribe.

My mom and dad have been married almost 65 years. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, managing the seven of ...