From A to Franchisee: The Podcast for Smarter Franchise Buying

Women in Franchising

• Franchise Business Review • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Host: Michelle Rowan, COO and President of Franchise Business Review

Guest: Ali Kraus, CMO of Benetrends Financial and Vice Chair of IFA's Women in Franchising Committee

Episode Summary:

In this engaging podcast episode, Michelle Rowan welcomes back Ali Kraus, the first repeat guest, to discuss the evolving landscape of women in franchising. They explore the progress and challenges women face in the industry, highlighting the importance of financial literacy, mentorship, and confidence. Ali shares insights from her experience on both the franchisor and supplier sides, emphasizing the need for women to ask the right questions and leverage their transferable skills. The conversation also touches on the significance of networking, the role of empathy and detail orientation in business ownership, and the opportunities for women to thrive in franchising. The episode concludes with advice for women considering franchising and a look at the future goals of the Women's Franchise Committee.

*Ali mentions a misleading stat in this episode. While she could have been referring to the fact that women only hold 29% of all C-Suite positions in the U.S. Or she could have been referencing that 80% of older women couldn't pass this financial literacy quiz. Either way, her point is to illustrate an imbalance between men and women. 

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Michelle Rowan (00:52)
Welcome back to our podcast from A to franchisee and welcome back to Ali Kraus you first of all Ali I have to say you're the first repeat guest on the pod. So thanks for coming back ⁓ I know I know and Yeah, you're the first repeat ⁓ And for those if you didn't check out her first episode you should go back and check it out because Ali Kraus is with Benetrends Financial she's their chief marketing officer and our first episode gets into

Ali Kraus (01:04)
That's a super fun title. Double FBR podcast guest. Yay.

Michelle Rowan (01:22)
all the different ways that you can fund franchises. And in that conversation, we talked about Ali's role as the vice chair of the International Franchise Association's Women in Franchising Committee. She's also active in the Women's Franchise Network and has been named a Young One to Watch by 1851 Magazine and has been named a top franchise influencer. So of course she's our first repeat guest. She's got so much energy and knowledge. So thanks for being here.

Ali Kraus (01:50)
could never be an influencer like I wanted to on Instagram, so I'll take it franchising. I hear they make a lot of money.

Michelle Rowan (01:53)
It's easier in franchising, right?

All right, so if you don't have a career as a social media influencer and you're thinking about franchising, this is the podcast. We're gonna help you out. Okay, so I wanted to start with just some of the data that we have. So again, here at Franchise Business Review, we get feedback from franchise owners.

Ali Kraus (02:08)
This is it.

Michelle Rowan (02:18)
And so I took a look at our current data. We look at this in real time and currently we have 32 % of the respondents to our survey report them self-report themselves as female. So we do give them options to not disclose, but of those that did disclose, that's 32 % are female out of about 30,000 responses total. So have work to do. We need to get more women into franchising, but I went back and looked 10 years ago and we were at 28%. So

Progress is slow, but we've made progress. So yay, more women are In franchising The next things that I wanted to share, which I have other data that I can spread out, sprinkle in our discussion, but I think this is a good one to hit, is that 35 % of the female respondents reported over $1 million in total sales and operating revenues that their franchise business generated in the last year. So also,

Franchising is a great opportunity. these are not just side hustles. That's kind of what I wanted to put out. This is not like a part-time franchise opportunity that you have on top of a job. We're talking about people that are making their living in franchising. The other side of it is 63 % of the women that took our survey are single unit operators, which means they own one location or territory of one brand. The number of...

men that are single unit operators is 53%. So there is opportunity to talk about women and how they can get ready to expand their business as well. lots to talk about. I want to start with Ali, just your perspective on what it's like to be a woman in franchising. you're on the supplier side.

But let's just talk about the general community of women in franchising and what you see in person at events and online and just talk about your experience being part of this community that we've built.

Ali Kraus (04:05)
I think I'm lucky where I stand because I didn't enter franchising until 2018 and I was on the franchisor side. So, I'm a supplier now. I've gotten to experience both sides of the world and I hear so often from women before me who led the International Franchise Association's Women's Franchise Committee that

Michelle Rowan (04:12)
Well, that's right.

Ali Kraus (04:25)
You used to look around the room 20 years ago and there would be four standing there. I just heard Mary Kennedy Thompson say that last week when we were together in DC, she said her first convention 20 or so years ago, she looked around and there was four. I feel like I'm really fortunate because I don't look around and feel that way. And it's something I don't wanna relate to, but I also want to relate to my wonderful women before me that talk about that. I think that's a...

huge step in the right direction, even going from 28 to 32 % in what you're seeing at FBR out of 30,000 people, that's still a big number, even though it's 10 years ago. And every year at the International Franchise Association's convention, that usually happens in February, we do a women-led conference the day before where we have almost 400 people in the room and like 90 plus percent of them are female. So I look around, I see women.

but where I don't see women is still in the C-suite. And so ⁓ a personal thing that really kind of lit a fire under me when I entered this world is I heard a statistic once that stated 80 % of women will never enter the C-suite at their companies because they are financially illiterate. And so that, while I can't cite where that came from, it hit me pretty deep because I started to question where was the gap in the why?

Was it women not wanting to be financially literate to understand their company's P &L, their company's budget? And if there was a gap, then again, back to the why, it women didn't want to? Did they not know who to ask? Was nobody coaching and developing them? Was there not programs in place by HR companies to be able to develop these women into becoming financially literate? So that really stuck with me. And I think something that

brings me a lot of joy at Benetrends is more than 60 % of our staff is women. So I look around the room and regardless of what seat you sit in, we have a lot of women who are in a financial business. And so there's a lot of beauty there to see that there are women out there, but where is that gap of why are men financially literate, but women are not?

Michelle Rowan (06:37)
I think that's a great question. so my friend Susan Bath, who's also in franchising and has been on the PE side, says that too, they just aren't in those rooms where money is being talked about. So I do have a couple of resources that I want to share with people. And I think KeyBank is one of the vendors that does a lot around this. They have a program called Key for Women and it's for not just for franchising, but it is for women. It is a mentorship, an opportunity to understand financials better and build that community.

Ali Kraus (06:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Michelle Rowan (07:07)
I just wanted to throw that in here because when we talk about barriers of women getting into franchising or any leadership position at a company, you do have to know your numbers, absolutely.

Ali Kraus (07:07)
Love

Yeah, and

you did ask me about franchising specifically, but I started with a positive that I do think there's more women in the room, but I think in the room that I stand in now is also a lot of corporate franchisers and suppliers in the rooms. And so while it's not necessarily down on the franchisee and the operator level, ⁓ it is looking around the room at how many people are there and how are they getting there and what resources do they have to become financially literate to be in the room.

And the other major shift in franchising I've seen even just in the last six or seven years I've been here is the amount of women owned businesses that are also passions of women. And I think that that is something really cool to see in franchising is we're not just seeing these growths in just food companies, but we're seeing things like dance programs and dance schools that come out and children companies, whether that be preschools or Lego.

Michelle Rowan (07:52)
Yes.

Ali Kraus (08:09)
opportunities and STEM classes. And so I think we're even on the financing side, seeing businesses change are really those passion projects for women. I hope from the multi-unit, from the single unit to the multi-unit expansion, women who do currently or not yet own businesses are also open to exploring different options of things that can really be passion projects for them that really focus on what women enjoy doing every day in their life, which is franchising in a whole.

Michelle Rowan (08:36)
Yeah,

yeah, I think that's great. I mean, when you said that, I can think of founder-led brands, female founder-led brands that also skew heavily on the franchisee side. We have Tutu School, we have ⁓ Foxy Box, Laser, and Wax. There's so many that come to mind. Spoiled Rotten Photography is a husband and wife team that started it, but there's opportunities, I think, that skew female based on women.

Ali Kraus (08:43)
guys.

Yeah

Michelle Rowan (09:04)
and what they want in their lives, is work-life balance, which is being involved in their children's lives, if that's the stage there in their lives. So I think there's a lot of businesses that support that place that you are in your life, not even just what you're passionate about.

Ali Kraus (09:17)
Yeah, and it reminds me of the whole Barbie concept of women being able to see themselves. And Tutu School, for example, Genevieve is gonna be on our women's stage this year. And Tutu School's working with Brown Girls Do Ballet. And so as somebody who was a dancer their whole life and looks around and you hear these stories of little girls looking up to Misty Copeland and thinking, I can be that now because not every ballerina looks the same and not every body.

Michelle Rowan (09:23)
Yes.

Ali Kraus (09:43)
is the same like Foxy Box and wanting laser hair removal or any sort of thing in the well-being space of the world. I think it's so exciting to see founders that are also in a position now of me as a female wanting to see myself and what they've built. And that's a big change too as we explore franchise and even myself looking for a franchise business, seeing female founders of businesses, it also makes me realize I can do that too because you look like me.

Michelle Rowan (10:12)
Yeah, yeah, we share something in common. And that's one thing that I would say too is when you are looking for a franchise, looking for that kind of signal of companies, if that's important for you. So what are they putting on their website? Who are their customers? What are the pictures of the people that they are catering to look like? What does their leadership team look like? That matters to a lot of people to understand before you get into an organization what that looks like.

What about any other barriers that you think? So I think financial literacy is probably top of a lot of women probably don't even think they could own their own business. That's probably a big barrier of people thinking about doing this. Can you think of any other barriers of why we don't see more women in franchise businesses?

Ali Kraus (10:57)
I personally think there's a confidence gap. I think that women tend to underestimate that they're ready or they wait longer to pursue ownership. isn't something that they've necessarily seen their friends doing. And I think so oftentimes that community of women is so powerful that there's a lack of confidence a little bit here. again, going back to seeing these brands in our own local communities that are doing things that really speak to you, it becomes less.

your job and more about what your dreams are. And we say that at Benetrends all the time. It's you're funding the business of your dreams. You're not just funding your next job. I think that if we can find ways to get past that confidence gap, there's more opportunity for women everywhere. ⁓ I also think there's a lack of mentorship. think that there's...

still the representation gap that we were talking about a little bit. And it's still a male dominated space as your numbers at FBR are showing, Michelle. So I think that with fewer role models and networks out there, you have to stretch a little bit further, which we don't always have the time to do. So there comes the work life balance and finding the ways that you need to advocate for yourself. Because I do think that that's something that women need to do more than men is advocate for themselves and stretch themselves a little further.

to find the resources they need to have the mentorship and the representation that they need to get into a business for themselves.

Michelle Rowan (12:20)
well, I think this is a great place for us to talk about the Women's Franchise Network. these are regional groups. Tell us a little bit because when we go to these, and sometimes the events are virtual, sometimes they're in person, but we tend to see more franchisors and suppliers, but it's open to franchisees. And it's open to, this is Toni Harris-Taylor's new term that I love, people that are franchise curious can come to a WFN event, right? Yeah, isn't it cute? Yeah.

Ali Kraus (12:42)
I do love that. Yeah. Yes, that's perfect.

Michelle Rowan (12:48)
Yeah,

tell us about the WFN and tell us about what some of the events are that you guys have done in your particular chapter, just what you've heard, because there's a variety of ways that we try to network and connect each other.

Ali Kraus (12:57)
Yeah, and I think that's the part of franchising that's special and I hope people can take from this podcast is there's plenty of women's groups and business groups out there in your local communities. But if you're looking for something really franchise specific to better understand the industry and connect with like professionals in your area, there's more than 20 local chapters of what we call the women's franchise networks. You can simply Google that. You can search IFA's women franchise networks. There's a whole list of them where you can get right to the women who own them in local cities.

all across the United States. And the fantastic part about those, like you said, they are heavy on the franchisor and the supplier side, but franchisees in local communities are welcome. And what we see in the WFNs is oftentimes those franchisees in local communities are just not on mailing lists. Their franchisor might be part of the International Franchise Association's directory, but you as a personal, local Aroma Joe's Coffee franchisee, ⁓

Probably are not on those so you tend to be a little bit harder to find but those networking opportunities are out there most of the WFN cities host something every quarter whether that be virtual or in person Some of them do really big ones with panels and little crawls through local franchises where you stop and have

of Auntie Anne's pretzel and then you go on to the next one. But ⁓ even the virtual ones are fantastic because you can do them from home and they are open to both men and women, but they are primarily women run and women attended. So it's a really, really cool way to network. And I think that you can utilize things like LinkedIn to find those. You can reach out directly on the IFA's website. But the resources are out there. You just have to.

stretch a little bit further to find that mentorship, but it's there. And I think if you can find something specific to franchising, so many of your answers can really be fulfilled by networking events.

Michelle Rowan (14:35)
Yeah, yeah.

and I would say that's something that is really special about franchising is we all want to help everybody be successful. So showing up at those, even if you haven't invested in a franchise and you're just thinking about it, you're going to get a lot of free advice there that is worth it just to show up for that reason. So go to the International Franchise Association's website and find them. We can also share that as a resource in our show notes, but just get on a mailing list, like zero pressure. Just get on, you will not be bombarded. You will not be...

Ali Kraus (15:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Michelle Rowan (15:18)
hard targeted to sell.

Ali Kraus (15:18)
and if you don't have one local, you can go to any of them all. I live in Baltimore, but I go to the Philly ones, because I can drive if I'm around. I also do the Atlanta ones. I log on to the Florida ones. They're open to anyone. You don't have to be local, too, which I think is important, because you can quickly look and say, well, there's not one with a few hours. But that's the beauty of having Zooms today. So you can also reach out to the Women's Franchise Committees LinkedIn page if you're not sure where to find some of those resources.

Michelle Rowan (15:21)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ali Kraus (15:46)
All of those are listed on there too. And LinkedIn is probably a whole podcast for another day, Michelle, because I think it's just another way to network with people from your brand, from common brands, from brands you're interested in. And networking of that has really become its social media platform in itself.

Michelle Rowan (16:04)
Yeah, absolutely. And also to the idea, let's plant the seed that once you become a franchise owner, the benefit of being in a franchise is you get to network with all these people that are running the same business as you are. So if you can find other women in your network, you now have this mentor peer situation where you're talking the same numbers. And then you show up at these events and you can start talking to other business owners in your market and talk about ways that you guys can support each other. And I think that that is a missed opportunity.

that if these franchisees showed up, they could understand how they could help promote each other's businesses and refer business to each other. So I think it's just a huge opportunity for business owners as well. So what do you think are some of the unique qualities that women bring to business ownership, to franchise ownership? What do you think makes them great once they pull trigger and decide to start their own thing?

Ali Kraus (16:40)
Thank

I always go back to empathy. think that word is so important and just the emotional intelligence that women have as leaders. think it can help with customer service, with team retention. And so often women are criticized or made less because of our emotional level of intelligence. But I think it can actually work in the total positive opposite effect of I think women are better leaders and I think women are better business owners because of empathy.

and putting yourself in the shoes of the people that work with you, for you, under you, next to you. And it makes us better in the end. I also think we are detail-oriented creatures, or at least myself is. I find women are very...

Michelle Rowan (17:29)
grade.

Mm-hmm.

Ali Kraus (17:43)
process driven managers. it works so well with franchising because it's the definition of franchising when you're not creating your own business from scratch, you're entering a system with processes that you can follow. That detail oriented woman can do exactly that to ensure that those brand standards stay across wherever your single or multi unit territories are. And so I think between empathy and being detail oriented, you make the perfect franchisee.

Michelle Rowan (17:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think I would add to that too, that it tends in my community when I go to stuff for my daughter or I go to town related stuff, it tends to be women that are showing up in the community as well. And I think that's an important part of franchise ownership that not everyone thinks of. They think once I get into business, the franchisor is going to bring me the customers. And it's really not the case. They can certainly help you do that, but you have to be really active in your market because that's who people want to do business with. And so you're out there.

spreading goodwill, supporting causes, making sure that your product or service is out there. And I think women tend to tell people at church or when they're at a community event what they do. it becomes a natural way to build your business and bring customers in because you're just getting to know people and telling people your story. I tend to see that more from women than men. ⁓ Yes, yeah.

Ali Kraus (18:46)
you

Yeah, I think we're natural network builders. It just

makes that my daughter just started kindergarten and I even think it somehow I ended up on the freaking PTA already shocker if you know me. But like, even like I'm in this text thread that stresses me out sometimes but I'm looking at these women who are collecting money for something as simple as a fun run which most elementary schools do I'm learning. But the way that they also one of them owns a realty company and one of them owns

Michelle Rowan (19:07)
I am not surprised.

Yes!

Ali Kraus (19:27)
I don't even remember. think it's like a carpet cleaning company. But even just listening to the two of them, they know every orthodontist and car salesman in my entire town. And I'm sitting here amazed by it because they don't own franchises. And I'm thinking y'all should because you-

Michelle Rowan (19:41)
Yeah, I was like, and

have you pitched them all on franchising yet?

Ali Kraus (19:44)
No, but it's the women in the group. It's the women. It's just natural.

Michelle Rowan (19:46)
Yeah, yeah.

I love it. along the lines of we are busy, especially if we're mothers, wives, partners, all of that, I did want to share some of the data that we have from the women that responded to our survey that 46 % of the women that take our survey spend 40 hours or less in their business. again, I'm not...

promoting absentee ownership. I think you should plan to be in your business, but I think there is a way to manage your business and build your teams so that you don't have to work 60, 80 hours a week, which I think a lot of people in the corporate world do have to face. And 57 % of them report that they have a very balanced or a balanced work-life balance to their lives, which is, I think, more important to everybody coming out of COVID. I think everyone kind of reassessed.

how much we all try to get done in a day. So it's nice to see that the majority of people, women answering the survey do feel that balance or very balanced between the two.

Ali Kraus (20:40)
Those numbers also make me question why we haven't moved into multi-unit growth even more. So once you get in, if you're working 40 hours a week and you can expand that business, they compliment themselves.

Michelle Rowan (20:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and I would go back to your, ⁓ no one's showing them how no one's showing them that, Hey, this is how you assess where you have the time or the money to reinvest in your business, to grow it. Or this is the impact two locations, two territories would have. I mean, we, we go to IFA events or any franchise events where you hear franchisees talk about how exponentially you can grow your wealth when you start having more units, more territories. So yeah.

Ali Kraus (21:05)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Michelle Rowan (21:23)
They haven't been shown how to, Ali We gotta do that.

Ali Kraus (21:25)
Yeah,

I always tell people that I was a teacher for seven years before moving into franchising. And if you have kids, you know that there's always those professional development days where your child doesn't go to school because your teacher is professionally developing. But in case you didn't ever look at that, your teacher is being told what to professionally develop.

You are not out there spending time searching for who can professionally develop me. And it was the biggest gap I had when I left teaching and moving into the franchise world is nobody's doing it for me anymore. And I was very blessed with that and I didn't know it. It wasn't necessarily always things I wanted to be professionally developed on. But now that I'm here and I saw the best of both worlds, I think we're in a place where nobody's doing it for you. And so you have to be, if you want to be successful and grow, and you have to do it for yourself, especially as women.

Michelle Rowan (22:07)
Yeah.

Yeah,

it's a great point. Always be learning, listening, asking questions of other people that you see that are doing something that you're interested in is a great way to learn. ⁓ Okay, I have a couple more things that I wanted to share just from the women that answered our survey. 88 % of female franchise owners reported that they enjoy running their business. 87 % value being part of a franchise organization. 85 %

rate the franchise opportunity as excellent, very good or good. And I think this is the most important part. 82 % say their fellow franchisees provide a supportive network. And I think that's the great piece we hear it all the time in franchising. You're in business for yourself, but not by yourself. It is 100 % your business. You are building that culture of your organization. You are hiring, you are professionally developing your team, but you have a franchisor that is hopefully

Ali Kraus (22:53)
Yeah.

Michelle Rowan (23:08)
helping you understand how to market, how to support the business growing and kind of giving you that leg up. And you have other franchisees that you can tap into that are also doing the same thing. it's good news for the women that are in franchising. We just need to help more of them find their way to franchising.

Ali Kraus (23:27)
Yeah, and how cool is it to also have a team again? You remember being on your soccer team or I grew up dancing and I think the crave that we sometimes even have as adults to just have like-minded people around us can be really difficult to find, but you can find that in a franchise system.

so easily and I think the beauty to it too, I know we're gonna get into advice a little bit in a moment here Michelle, but I think I always tell people to utilize those networks, especially through that validation process when you're searching for franchises. And so what a better way than to actually, if you're a female, ask to speak to the female franchisees in your system and utilize the network that's already there to see, is this a team that I can picture myself being part of for a very long time.

Michelle Rowan (24:11)
Yeah, that's perfect. So I was going to ask you what advice you have for women that are looking to get into franchising. So that's a great one. If you narrow down the brand, talking to the women that are in the brand, what other tips do you have for them as they assess if this is the right fit for them?

Ali Kraus (24:26)
You

I have been to a lot of trade shows in my time where you can walk through the halls and see different brands and it's a great way to interact with people. But oftentimes potential franchisees aren't going to trade shows. They are looking up websites, utilizing the FBR website to understand more about franchises. And so I think one of the most important things that I always say, and it's so simple, but it's just to ask the right questions. And I think most of the time people don't know what the right questions are to ask. You want to say, well, how much money can I make? And what's your average?

EBITA and the things that are like such classic questions for me would not do enough if I was searching for a business. I would want to know, you have a women's program and how do you support

How do you support diversity in your system? What does my day to day look like? Tell me about your values and what's my lifestyle going to look like? Lifestyle goes back to what we were talking about earlier and the 80 plus percent of people who are happy in their brands is wonderful to hear, but they also probably got there because they asked the right questions and it fit their lifestyle. And not only

what do I do during the day, but is this something that I'm going to pass down to my family and how long do I want to keep this business and what does my exit strategy look like and how do you support that as a franchisor? Those are all really deep questions that I don't often hear people saying right off the cusp, but I would always challenge a potential franchisee to challenge their franchisor. Ask the uncomfy questions that matter to you and don't undervalue what your transferable skills are too.

going from teacher to franchising, I thought I wasted seven years of my life and four years of my college degree. But what I would hope women to remember is that transferable skills from other careers can do amazing things in franchising and you can figure out some of those transferable skills by asking the right questions of your franchisor in that discovery process.

Michelle Rowan (26:16)
Well, and you make a good point because usually when you go into a franchise, you're not always the one delivering the product or service. You're building the business in your community. So you don't have to be passionate about the thing you're delivering, but maybe it's building the team. It can be a variety of reasons. What I loved that you said, and we always recommend this on the franchisor side, that it's important to have these conversations upfront, is to talk about the exit strategy upfront. Not enough business owners do that. And if we're talking about women,

not traditionally being as financially fluent, that is so important to have not just your one year plan, your five year plan, but like, why are you doing this? What is your end goal in this? And it can change, but I think that's a great question. And the candidate side of asking the franchisor how they support that exit strategy. ⁓ And then I want to go back to the other thing you said is you had mentioned when we were in...

the early part of this conversation, the importance of mentorship. And I think that's another question to ask as far as how do they, do they have peer groups? Do they have regional meetings? Are they giving you those opportunities and facilitating those ways to connect with other franchise owners and specifically female franchise owners, if that's important. That's also something that you can ask as you're identifying the opportunity. Yeah. Any other things that you would think about or just kind of flag as

Ali Kraus (27:33)
Yeah, good point.

Michelle Rowan (27:40)
ways to help you look at it. think, again, the business plan, the financials. So if we're saying there's not a strong financial fluency there, working with someone, a lawyer, a franchise specific lawyer to understand when you look at the FDD, the franchise disclosure document, when you're trying to understand what your upside or worst case scenario is, if you don't have that skill set, hire someone to help you understand that and build your business plan.

Ali Kraus (28:07)
Yeah, and don't go in under capitalized. So if you want to talk about multi-unit growth and your future and your exit plan, it's not spending every penny you have and not being left over with any cash for those things that pop up. we educate on this a lot here at Benetrends, but I do it especially to women personally, is that I know I can get really fooled by the prettiest of cars, but...

Michelle Rowan (28:10)
YES!

Ali Kraus (28:32)
but I'm not buying the prettiest of cars. I'm buying the one I can afford that I got pre-qualified for. making a business purchase is likely much larger than your home or your car, which we do multiple times in life. So if you do the homework before you fall in love with the brand,

That's always my problem. want the shiniest new iPhone in the Pro Max 17 color blue, but it's also $1,600. So do you need it at that time? And how can you really make sure that you're not going in under capitalized because you're going to want to put together a long-term plan that includes your exit strategy. that's going to come down to your financials quite often. And so if you can.

Find things you're passionate about, but go into them pre-qualified to know what you might qualify for, whether that's using your retirement funds or acquiring a loan from a bank. You're gonna go in a lot safer and a lot more prepared for growth in the end.

Michelle Rowan (29:28)
that's great advice. just don't go out too big. You can always grow more, but you can't ungrow. That's it. Don't be franchise broke.

Ali Kraus (29:33)
Mm-hmm.

We say it's like house broke. Do you want to be house broke? Sometimes I'm like, yeah, kind of, but no, not really. But you don't want to be car

broke. You don't want to be house broke. You don't want to be business broke. so especially on your first unit, just, think it's an important conversation to have and also find out how your franchisor can support you. What does it look like? What's common? Those are also fantastic questions to ask other franchisees when you're calling them. Cause there's

Michelle Rowan (29:49)
I love that.

Ali Kraus (30:01)
oftentimes a fine line in talking financials directly with your franchisor, but your franchisee conversations can bring you a lot of valuable information and you can ask those questions upfront during that validation process of giving current franchisees phone calls.

Michelle Rowan (30:15)
excellent. I would also say making sure if you are married or have a partner to make sure that they are on board with this decision too, that's always good to have someone else with you learning about the opportunity going through the discovery day, even if they're not active in the day-to-day of the business. I always recommend that. think it's a great way to just have someone else's set of eyes, ears, especially if they're financially investing or impacted by the decision, to bring them along for the ride.

Ali Kraus (30:41)
Yeah, good point.

Michelle Rowan (30:42)
Yeah. All right. So Ali, come February, you become the chair of the Women's Franchise Committee for the International Franchise Association. I want to know if you've thought about or what you're most excited about for women in the future of franchising.

Ali Kraus (30:56)
The thing I'm most excited about from a WFC perspective is seeing new brands and new people on stage. So sometimes franchising can feel a little bit small, but there are more than 4,000 brands out there. So something I think we're all trying to get better at is really looking for those stories of female founded, female led brands with fantastic female stories and female franchisees to tell. And so I know that it's a big goal of ours moving into our 30th year of the Women's Franchise Committee this year is really putting voices

and people on stage from all size units of franchises to showcase women from all diverse backgrounds across the US. one of our biggest goals is to get people up there you haven't seen before.

Michelle Rowan (31:39)
love that. And I would also point everybody to the Franchise Business Review website where we have our top franchises for women. It is the top 100 brands based on the data that we collect. You will find franchises in every segment. There's cleaning and maintenance, there's child services that Ali talked about, business services, senior care. There's lots of opportunity there, but those are brands that have gotten feedback from their franchise owners and the female respondents.

have rated their training and support, their culture, the financial opportunity all really well, so it's a great place to start as well. And quick plug, if you need financing for your business, make sure to hit up Benetrends, because they can help you figure out the best way to finance your dream. Thank you so much, Ali. Any parting words for people thinking about getting into franchising?

Ali Kraus (32:26)
Yeah, I think if anyone's listening and has questions specifically about women in franchising or financing your business, you can reach me personally on LinkedIn. You can find me at Ali Kraus because I tend to live on there.

Michelle Rowan (32:37)
Thank you so much for coming back. It was great having you.

Ali Kraus (32:40)
Yay!

Anytime.