CRAIN'S - Chicagobusiness.com - It's good to be (franchise) queen
September 11, 2006
Wanted: sales skills and respect for elders 
By Dee Gill
How do you take a young, community-based company and turn it into a nationwide franchise? Shelly Sun, 36, founder of Chicago-based BrightStar Healthcare, has a plan. Ms. Sun, a former insurance industry CPA who started BrightStar in 2002 after flying to find in-home help for her husband’s ailing grandmother, started selling franchises two years ago. The business now has four company-owned locations and seven franchisees in seven states with one location each who plan to increase that to a total of 25. Crain’s talked to Ms. Sun, who plans to have 400 offices by 2010.
CRAIN’S: What kind of help did you seek to set up your franchise structure?
MS. SUN: We hired professionals to develop a human resources training course and a professional branding company to do our marketing materials. We have two franchise consultants and I have two franchise owners on my board, as well as a hospice nurse and my banker. I’m all about seeking and taking great advice.
What do you look for in a franchisee?
We’re looking for people who are looking at it from a business perspective, but more importantly are looking to help seniors. We’re making sure that we can find franchise owners who can sell. It’s critical, because it’s not like a Subway where you can throw your name on the outside and people just walk in the door. It’s a community business. It relies on referrals, so you have to be actively marketing the business.
How do you test their sales skills?
We have them go out with one of our sales people and do a sales call. If they’re not comfortable with sales while they’re with us, the likelihood that they are going to do it every single day for eight hours is not good.
What kind of candidates do you turn down?
Somebody who could not articulate for me why they want to work with seniors. Because if they’re not compassionate and they’re not talking to the senior—if they’re ignoring them—we take that very seriously.
How much revenue and earnings information do you give potential franchisees?
Our UFOC (Uniform Franchise Offering Circular) has one of the most comprehensive earnings disclosures. We give a full three years, all the way from revenues down to our net income, including the average hours employees work.
Most franchisors don’t disclose that much information. Why do you?
I don’t know that I could make a business decision without having that information available to me. A lot of the larger systems have 500 franchisees to call and ask how they are doing, and some of them will tell you how they’re doing financially. If you are looking at a new concept where the buyers don’t have other franchisees to talk to, and those they can talk to have been open six months or less, you have to give them something.
Are there things you would do differently if you had them to do over again?
I would have built a half-day of sales evaluation of the potential franchisee into “discovery day” from the very beginning.
Any advice for small business owners thinking of expanding through franchising?
The small biz owners that I talk to who look at expanding through franchisees really underestimate their costs. For us, it meant investing between $250,000 to $500,000 to expand into the franchising arena.
