DailyFranchiseNews.com

R.I.P. Rover

Losing a loved one is a traumatic experience. Oftentimes, however, the only grief that is recognized is for those with two legs instead of four.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the handful of pet funeral homes exist around the country is poised to increase in a big way. Next month, Coleen Ellis, owner of Pet Angel Memorial Center in Carmel, Ind., will begin franchising her pet funeral home business and plans to open 250 to 300 locations nationwide over the next seven years. Ellis believes that pets, who are treated as family members by most owners, should receive the same quality after-care as humans.

Her service includes picking up the bodies of deceased pets from veterinary hospitals, where they're immediately wrapped in blankets and put into caskets. Back at the funeral home, staff members help guide grieving owners through a vast array of memorial and burial options. Most clients opt for "visitations" where last respects are paid in the chapel or family room, Ellis says. During the private ceremonies, an urn with the pet's ashes is usually displayed so owners as well as friends, family and surviving pets can pay their final respects. About two visitations take place daily for a variety of furry and finned creatures including dogs, cats, rabbits, goldfish, rats and lizards.

Ellis says she started the country's first pet funeral home four years ago after the death of her dog Mico, a schnauzer mix. It was then she discovered that her veterinarian, like most throughout the country, put euthanized animals in garbage bags and stored them in a freezer for up to one week. A disposal company then picked up the bodies and brought them to a landfill or crematory.

"Those babies do not deserve to be put into trash bags," Ellis says. "[With us] their body is given the dignity and respect all the way through."

The Money's in the Mess

When most people say they’re having a crappy day, it’s meant to be negative. A crappy day, however, is one Ray Hays prays for every night and hopes to wake up to every morning. Inside Tucson Business reported the president and CEO of Doo Care, a pet waste removal company, literally takes crap from his customers all day long.

"Let’s not kid ourselves, this is not a sexy business," said Hays. "But once you look past the poop and look at it from the MBA perspective, this is a very viable business." Nat Truitt, an entrepreneur in Glen Ellyn, Ill., started the company in August 2006 and quickly began developing many clients, both commercial and residential. Hays, who is a franchising veteran of more than 17 years, was an initial skeptic of Doo Care. He laughed when a business colleague told him to investigate Doo Care. But after taking a closer look at Doo Care’s comprehensive business systems and financial results, Hays got over the poop stigma and realized the concept was a future franchise leader waiting to be taken to market.

Hays wants to take Doo care to the next level. He is also president of DC Franchising LLC, the franchisor of Doo Care. Hays launched the franchising program in November 2007 with an aggressive plan to open 250 franchises over the next five years. Besides Tucson and Chicago, Doo Care is operating in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio. The company expects to sell 15 territories this year. This month, Hays will add Phoenix. Next, Hays has his eye on opening Doo Care franchises in Southern California, Las Vegas and Denver. The investment for a single franchise is an initial fee of $24,500 and available capital of $38,398 to $56,996, including the fee. Mutliple territories have capital requirements of $53,098 to $71,696 or more, depending on the number of territories.

YourOffice = Your Office

While working from home does have its perks, it will take much longer for your business to achieve credibility if you client sees you in your feetys.

Catalyst magazine reported that situation will no longer be an issue thanks to executive office suites like YourOffice. Concepts like YourOffice provide a ready-made, furnished office and technology such as state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment like video conferencing and multimedia presentation tools. They have temps or part-time staffers on call if clients require extra help. The office also has concierge services and administrative help, including a receptionist to answer the telephones of each client and receive packages. And, unlike traditional office space, serviced office suites offer flexible contracts. People can lease a private office for part of the week or month-to-month for as little as $175 per month, or they can lease a large corner office in the heart of the Buckhead section of Atlanta for $2,500 a month for years.

YourOffice started as a concept in Europe in the early 1990s and opened its first U.S. location in Denver in 1998. CEO Scott Rae Buono purchased the company in 2004 and opened office locations in Atlanta, Orlando, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Raleigh and Birmingham. When Buono purchased YourOffice, he made several changes. He increased the average square footage of the office suites from 8,000 to 10,000-30,000 square feet. And he secured higher-quality office space in more sought-after areas. “We improved both of those in a meaningful way so the economics of the business worked better,” he said.

Made in the Shade

It’s official: Luxottica Group S.p.A. has signed a franchising deal with a privately held company to initially put 15 Sunglass Hut stores in Thailand.

CNNMoney.com reported terms were not disclosed regarding the agreement between the Italian glasses maker and Diethelm Keller Ltd., the franchisee, but the new locations will join the 220 existing Sunglass Hut locations in the Asia-Pacific region. As of March 31st, Sunglass Hut had 1,970 stores, primarily in North America, Asia-Pacific, United Kingdom, South Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

"The entry into Thailand strengthens our presence in Southeast Asia, a high-potential growth region for the sun retail business," Chris Beer, Luxottica's chief executive of retail business in Australasia, Southeast Asia and South Africa, said in a statement.

Withstanding the Test of Time

In this day and age, it’s hard to put much stock in anything. However, here’s one business that’s just as certain as death and taxes.

The Hartford Business Ledger reported Kiddie Academy in Bel Air, Maryland recently marked its 20th year in business. The childcare center might attribute its longevity to baby boomers having babies, but more likely it’s the company’s commitment to quality, community and its franchisees that led to its success. The Kiddie Academy of Bel Air is one of 91 academies across the nation and one of six owned and operated by the company (the other 85 are franchisee owned and operated).

“We are an education provider,” said Eva Shulte, vice president of operations. “It’s been interesting over the years to see things change. Families have become focused on integrated play and academic stimulation. They are more interested in what a child is learning and what their interactions are with teachers and other students.”

The Kiddie Academy curriculum is proprietary and, Shulte said, has continued to evolve with current standards. She described the organization’s commitment to working with state departments of education to ensure Kiddie Academy graduates are well-prepared to enter kindergarten. With calm confidence that reassures parents nervous about leaving their little ones for care, Bel Air site director Janene Lamon described families that return to Kiddie Academy baby after baby.

“We have a very tight relationship with our parents. We know their families, their situations, their relatives… It’s important for me to have that type of relationship with them,” she said. “A parent can leave here upset because they will miss their child, but it is absolutely unacceptable for anyone to walk out feeling uncomfortable about leaving their child,” she said.

Shulte said the Kiddie Academy organization has a similar commitment to its franchisees.

“We support them day in and day out,” Shulte said. “We bring in business consultants to look at things. They help our owners determine what is working wonderfully and what areas can be strengthened. We have a pretty regimented program and talk every week, but it is open-ended.”

Fueling Fix

With gas pumps taking in more than $4 a gallon in some parts of the U.S., small businesses are faced with increasingly difficult choices: wringing more efficiencies from their operations, passing the costs on to customers in the form of price increases, cutting staff, or, if competition is too great, sucking it up and trying to hang on. Is your business feeling the heat? Read on for some solutions.

"Anybody who uses vehicles, whose got delivery services, anybody that has to really depend on gasoline or oil derivatives of any kind is having a problem," William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, tells Reuters. Some industries such as construction, he says, hurt especially hard by the economic downturn and the fall-off in housing, are lowering their prices just to stay in business. "You can't raise prices if you don't have customers," he said.

Energy costs for small businesses are primarily linked to vehicles, which account for about 38 percent of the expense, on average, according to recent data from NFIB. In the past year, around half of the businesses NFIB polled that use vehicles in their operations have been taking steps to save gasoline, including rescheduling routes, using fewer vehicles or using them less and purchasing more energy-efficient models.

While big companies like AMR's American Airlines make headlines with moves to offset fuel costs such as charging customers $15 to check a bag, smaller companies are carving out their own additional strategies for surviving the latest energy crunch. One area that transportation-heavy businesses are looking at is fuel management and logistics. Vancouver, B.C.-based 4Refuel helps some 6,000 businesses with fleets – some with as few as three or four trucks – rein in costs by bringing diesel to vehicles when they're not in service. Among the many benefits, this approach eliminates having to interrupt a route - or pay a driver who is on the clock - to burn more fuel to get to the station and then idle the truck while it's filling up.

"Our service comes in and refuels their vehicles during down time," says Norm Bogner, a 4Refuel vice president.  "Anytime that's spent in unproductive time - fueling is one of those - is really taking time away from the return on the asset." Using computers installed in vehicle engines, the company also uses analytics to measure fuel-wasting practices such as time spent idling with the engine running.

Everyone’e Gotta Eat..But Where?

One would think if food is purchased from a restaurant, said food could be eaten at that restaurant. Not according to Tim Hortons.

The Toronto Star reported Toronto investment manager Teresa Lee bought breakfast Wednesday for a pregnant homeless woman at a Tim Hortons downtown then was scolded by a restaurant employee unhappy that the homeless woman stayed in the restaurant to eat. This event comes just two weeks after an employee at a Tim Hortons was fired, then rehired, after she gave a child a free Timbit. The employee, Lee said, told her that that particular Tim Hortons does not let homeless people eat inside, even if they are eating Tim Hortons food, because they "make a mess." Lee, 34, said she saw the homeless woman lying on a grate and when the woman got upset after police told her to move, Lee asked if she was hungry.  Lee bought her a sandwich, a Boston cream doughnut, and chocolate milk. The woman, Lee said, sat down at a corner table, "not bothering anybody," to eat. When Lee walked out the door, the employee followed to admonish her.

Rachel Douglas, spokesperson for Tim Hortons, said the homeless woman had been asked to leave the restaurant on several previous occasions. Tim Hortons, she said, does not have a policy on the treatment of the homeless; it is up to franchises to "make delicate judgment decisions when dealing with any disruptive customers to ensure the store is pleasant, comfortable and safe." But she acknowledged the woman had not been disruptive Wednesday before the employee rebuked Lee. "What happened here was the act of a Good Samaritan and we agree it was not handled in the best of manners. We have since apologized to the customer." Lee, however, said that apology was incomplete. Douglas appeared to apologize only for how the restaurant treated her, she said, not the homeless woman. "I don't think she directly admitted what they did wrong," Lee said.

The Lee incident Wednesday and the Timbit controversy two weeks earlier illustrates the challenges companies like Tim Hortons face in protecting their brand images from negative publicity created by the decisions of their franchises. Ninety-five per cent of the Canadian stores in the Tim Hortons chain are owned by independent franchisees who pay annual fees to the company, not by Tim Hortons itself. The company, "a Canadian icon of best practices from a franchising perspective," extensively trains franchisees on the treatment of customers, said Perry Maisonneuve, the principal at Northern Lights Franchise Consultants in Mississauga. "But it comes down to judgment. Somebody is Johnny-on-the-spot, they're there at that time, and they're going to react."

Discuss.

A Whole Lotta Green

So you’ve bought a Prius, shop at Whole Foods and run your home solely on solar energy. Does your business complement your green lifestle? Soon, it can.

QSR.com reported James M. Sleighter, president of Tampa, Florida-based Health Food Hut, Inc., has entered into a $65 million deal with green building developer 1 Smart Duck Management Group to build 182 restaurants using the 1 Odd Duck iBuilding concept, saying it is only logical to move forward with his health food franchise plans using earth-friendly facilities.

“I want healthy buildings for the planet,” said Sleighter. “What’s the sense of starting a healthy quick-serve chain if your restaurants are polluting the earth?” Three Health Food Huts are slated to open before 2009. “We’re pushing to open three. There is a lot of interest in Daytona, Florida, so we’ll be opening one there, and we have two builders interested in Denver and Las Vegas,” Sleighter says.

It was about a year ago that Sleighter discussed his concept launch plans with 1 Smart Duck CEO Howard Cannon, adding that the iBuilding concept is “totally amazing.” 1 Smart Duck will be assisting with financing, and he is confident that 1 Smart Duck will help take his chain forward.

“The iBuildings will be specifically customized to be built, owned, and operated by the Health Food Hut and their franchisees, while 1 Smart Duck will handle the design, construction, and building management functions,” Cannon said.

Poop Pays

Who ever thought scooping poo would be so profitable?

The Dallas Business Journal reported Pet Butler, which provides pet waste cleanup and removal services, has sold its Dallas-Fort Worth area company-owned franchise territories to Bartonville businessman Mark Hamel for $1.2 million. Frisco-based Pet Butler said founder Matt "Red" Boswell sold his individual franchise territories to focus on corporate initiatives and growing the company's franchise operations throughout North America.

"This sale is exciting for us as a company, but bittersweet to me personally," said Boswell. "However, it's now time for someone else to take responsibility for its well being and expansion."

Pet Butler's Dallas-Fort Worth operation is the company's largest, cleaning up after 5,000 dogs each week. With the sale of the Dallas-Fort Worth territories, it now has 127 independently owned franchise territories in 27 states. New owner Hamel previously was an area manager for Pfizer Inc. and also headed a regional division of health care finance for Perot Systems Corp.

"Most people think I'm nuts when they find out that I've paid over a million dollars for dog poop, but once I explain the genius concept of the pet waste removal business they quickly become fans," said Hamel. "Most people say, 'Why didn't I think of that?'"

Flipping to Franchising

Does your corner 7-Eleven look any different to you? Chances are it doesn’t to the naked eye, yet the big change lies just beneath the surface..past the Slurpee machine and behind the Funyuns.

The Tampa Bay Business Journal reported the Dallas-based chain plans to convert approximately 475 company-operated stores in parts of Tampa, St. Pete and three other Florida market areas into franchised operations. The company operates 88 stores in the Tampa and St. Petersburg and 548 stores statewide. Stores in Bradenton and Sarasota included as part of the Fort Myers market are also available for franchising. A company spokeswoman said conversion of company-operated stores in Florida began with South Florida locations about a year ago.

7-Eleven provides the land, building, equipment and a turn-key operation for its franchisees. The average up-front, total investment for a franchise in Florida is about $180,000, though that can vary significantly from store to store.

"7-Eleven provides a proven business model, well-recognized brand and the No. 1 franchise opportunity as ranked this year by Entrepreneur magazine," said Brad Jenkins, division vice president for Florida operations. "The franchisee, as store operator, is in the best position to understand and respond to their local retail needs." Nationwide, approximately 4,100 of 7-Eleven's 5,400 stores are franchise operations, the release said.