Female Founders
when it is a tough day, I am grateful for
my current and former board members
to reach out to.
How has your experience in running
a franchise business been different
from what you expected? The tension
between positioning the brand for growth
and addressing franchisees’ preferences for
the current state is different than I would
have expected. We have multiple stakeholders and they are at different stages: a
franchisee in their first 24 months needs
very different things and has far different
priorities for themselves and what they
want from the brand than a franchisee
with 7 years who is within 5 years of an
exit strategy. Trying to balance the needs
of a diverse group while staying true to
the decisions that will propel the brand
forward is much different than I expected.
How did you grow the brand at first?
What changed as you expanded? In
the beginning we added new franchisees
based on strong relationships with brokers
that helped us get our message out to more
prospects than we could have reached on
our own. In our first 5 years, the franchisees
that came through brokers were roughly
80 percent of the total new units added.
As we became more established and built
out a franchise development team, more
of our new franchisees came through the
Internet and referrals.
How did you transition from founding a brand to leading a brand? In
the first several years I had to roll up my
sleeves and be a generalist and do what was
needed: supporting franchisees, teaching
training classes, processing payroll, and
many other tasks. As the business grew, I
transitioned to leading the brand by building a stellar team and allowing my team to
handle what they were best at. We had to
move from generalists to specialists. Even
now, I continue to evolve to be more the
visionary, strategist, and chief culture officer for the brand while empowering a
president to run the day-to-day operations.
Leadership transitions are about ensuring
you can spend more and more time leveraging your unique gifts and ensuring the
same is true throughout the organization
by empowering others to handle what
they can do better. I love being involved
in strategy—for our organization and in
helping franchisees define their strategy
for realizing their potential—and spending
time focused on regulatory and advocacy,
industry leadership, mentoring, and public
speaking. Building a great team allows me
to have the time to do the things I love
and have others handle everything else.
How would you describe your leadership style? I believe in high performance
for our entire team and also for myself. I
believe in sharing success with our team
because they are key to our growth and
to the service and results we deliver for
our franchisees. Every employee in our
organization, from receptionist to president, has stock options in our company.
We work hard and we play hard, and we
enjoy each other both inside and outside
of work. I also believe in empowering others to make decisions and ensuring that
everyone in the organization is clear on
our plan for the future, from the 1-year
plan to the 10-year plan and everything
in between so we are all rowing in the
same direction.
What is the key to your company’s
success? We designed services that meet
a need and we have invested to ensure we
can deliver on the quality that is part of the
brand promise. We benchmark ourselves
with accreditation and data to ensure we are
the market leader, and continue adapting
and investing to stay the market leader in
quality, patient outcomes, Net Promoter
Scores, revenue per franchisee, franchisee
profitability, franchisor profitability, etc.
BEING FEMALE
Was being female an advantage or
disadvantage for you in building
your company? How? I don’t think
being female was either an advantage or
disadvantage in building the business. I
think my finance skills were critical in
accessing initial financing and growth
capital. That is a skill set not commonly
held by women, and often not encouraged
for girls in school systems.
Have you found specific advantages
or disadvantages to being a woman
business owner? I think there are great
leaders of both genders. I do think my
strong empathy and big heart have kept
me focused on building a strong culture
and ensuring intentional communication
with my team and franchisees. I also value
strong relationships. It is weird to think in
terms of advantage or disadvantage as it
is just me and isn’t intentional, but rather
just comes naturally.
What has been your biggest challenge as a woman entrepreneur?
Formulating the best approach for capitalization to grow. We have considered
debt and equity options. And while there
are many, many great private equity firms
that are respectful of women, there have
been a surprising number that will defer
to my male colleagues and continue to do
so even after my male colleagues point
out my role and that questions should be
directed to me. This led to my decision to
hire an investment banking firm, William
Blair, to ensure I had the right platform
to maximize my options in the future and
not have my gender negatively affect my
financial options or outcome.
Why do you think there are fewer
start-ups with female founders than
male ones? I think women need to have
not only the skills and capital, but also the
support system to become entrepreneurs.
There is a bias that society has and that
we as women put on ourselves that we
have to be Superwoman and perfectly
juggle our children, our spouse/partner,
and our business. I think the expectation
that we are X