Veterans franchising usa february 2016 4#4

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Veterans in Franchising february 2016

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signal 88

security targeting veterans

solving problems

BY thinking differently

a win win for

ebv graduates Franchising USA

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V eterans in F ranchisin g S upplement february 2 0 1 6 Our Veterans in Franchising special supplement has become a regular feature of Franchising USA. To share your story in the next issue, please contact Vikki Bradbury, Publisher Phone: 778 426 2446 Email: vikki@cgbpublishing.com

Contents Cover Story

News & Expert Advice

24 Signal88: Franchise Targets Veterans

to Fulfill Overwhelming Demand

28

Profiles

Foundations Expected to Increase Their Support of Veteran-Owned Social Enterprise Franchises Jim Mingey, Founder and Managing Director, Veterans Business Services (VBS)

26 University of Baltimore 32 7 Eleven

30 Solving Problems by Thinking Differently Darcella K. Craven and Damon Chaffin, Veterans

Business Resource Center

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V e t er ans in Fr anchising

C over S tor y - signa l 88

Franchise targets veterans

to fulfill overwhelming demand “We’re actively seeking new franchise owners because we currently have more client demand than we have franchise owners.” - Reed Nyffeler, CEO

Reed Nyffeler

When it comes to supply and demand, Signal 88 Security is short on the former and has an overabundance of the latter, but the company hopes this situation will balance itself out with the help of veterans who are transitioning into civilian life.

The vision of Signal 88 Security, since its founding in 2003, is to provide a full suite of world-class and industryleading security services for residential, commercial, retail and institutional

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customers because, quite simply, safety is a basic human right and need. The company began franchising in 2007 and now has over 300 territories covered by roughly 125 franchise partners in the United States, Canada & Australia.

“We are a physical deterrent, so when we deter people from committing crime, it creates peace of mind for our customers” CEO Reed Nyffeler said during a recent interview from the company’s headquarters in Omaha, NE. Even though Signal 88 has a presence in 35 states (plus operations in Canada and Australia) its current franchise partners cover only about 10 percent of the available territory that the company has to offer in the United States. Nyffeler said about 90 percent of the country is still up for grabs and the company needs to fill those spots because it has an abundance of clients in new markets requesting service.

“We’re actively seeking new franchise owners because we currently have more client demand than we have franchise owners,” Nyffeler stated.

Potential franchisees don’t seem to be aware of Signal 88, the CEO lamented, citing numerous comments he’s heard from franchisees saying they wish they had known about the company earlier.

Feeling Insecure Nyffeler credits the demand for Signal 88’s services to several recent events — particularly mass shootings — that have left people feeling highly insecure even when they’re at home, work, school or out in a social setting like a movie theater or an athletic event.

“It’s one of our core needs to feel secure,” the CEO said.

Being a core need means that security is a stable industry that, aside from adopting better technology, will change relatively little and will definitely not disappear, Nyffeler said. In fact, in the current global climate, demand is only likely to rise.

However, not all security is the same.

Nyffeler said he conducted a competitive analysis prior to founding Signal 88 and saw there was a need for greater

“We are a physical deterrent, so when we deter people from committing crime, it creates peace of mind for our customers.” - Reed Nyffeler, CEO professionalism and localized ownership through franchising in the security industry. It also seemed to be an ideal fit for veterans who are transitioning out of the military or police service, which is why the company is keen to welcome veterans aboard.

“Instead of serving their country from another country, they can now serve their community where they grew up and where they wanted to return to and serve the people they really know,” he said.

One of the most compelling reasons for entrepreneurial-minded veterans to give Signal 88 a look, Nyffeler noted, is because among all the franchise opportunities available to them, security is the closest match to their existing skill set.

“I would be hard pressed to find any other concept that really serves the military community more than ours does if they really want to get into business because it truly is their skill set and their passion,” the CEO noted.

Along with a business opportunity that has increasing demand, Signal 88 also offers veterans a sense of community, as they will be in an environment that has a strong veteran presence.

In fact, Nyffeler said he’s certain that most, if not all, of Signal 88 franchisees, even if they are not veterans themselves, have members in their organization who have military experience.

The Right Fit Veterans’ experience lends itself well to the qualifications Signal88 looks for in new franchise partners. The company wants team captains, which Nyffeler described as people that other people look to for leadership and direction; people who are willing and able to make decisions and people who others will follow willingly.

Signal 88’s clients are looking for direction about how to keep their establishments safe, employees are looking for direction in their career and the company as a

franchisor is looking for someone who can take direction and veterans fulfill all of those needs, Nyffeler said, adding that they should also have high energy, a positive attitude and be personable.

Once Signal 88 has found these natural leaders, the company does everything it can to help them succeed, using what Nyffeler described as the company’s comprehensive support program. This program is known as the SOAP Box, with SOAP being an acronym for sales, operations, administration and promise.

For sales, the company has national accounts with clients who they have good working relationships with and they pass these opportunities along to franchisees to help them get some initial contracts.

The company also employs a team of regional managers to assist franchisees in making decisions around new contracts, prospecting calls and more.

Operationally, Signal 88 has a hiring and training process to help franchisees procure employees. But, the company is only involved in the hiring process as much as the franchisee wants.

The company also employs a staff of operations professionals at the corporate level to support the franchise network globally.

To assist with administration, the company performs billing and payroll for their franchisees.

“That is huge because that is where a lot of small business owners really bog themselves down, dealing with the local tax laws and the payroll processing and minimum wage compliance,” Nyffeler said.

On top of that, Signal 88 offers its own inhouse payroll financing service using the franchisees’ receivables that they can use if necessary.

Finally, the promise part of the equation is the guarantee that the company will always do its best to support its franchisees.

To entice veterans, the company offers active duty and honorably discharged veterans a 10 percent discount on the franchise fee.

The Signal 88 Difference The way Nyffeler sees it, Signal 88 is in two different industries: franchising and security.

For franchising, the company offers the utmost transparency for its franchisees, making sure everyone knows what is going on at all times. The company embraces technology, meaning it’s always on the leading edge of industry trends and provides its franchisees with a solid business to business model with high demand.

For its clients, Signal 88 offers the ability to interact with local ownership. Many major security businesses often don’t even have a representative a client can speak with in a state where they operate. But, with Signal 88, clients and employees alike are guaranteed to be dealing with a local owner. This local ownership model gives the company the ability to make quick adjustments in various markets rather than waiting for decisions to be made from some other location that may not be familiar with localized needs.

With its comprehensive support program and sense of community it offers to veterans, it’s only a matter of time before Signal 88 is able to fulfill the overwhelming demand for its services. https://signal88.com/franchise-home/

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Univer sit y of Baltimore

Internet Pioneer Donates $1 Million to Fund a Center and Support Services for Veterans at University of Baltimore In 2013, University of Baltimore alumnus Bob Parsons, B.S. ‘75, D.H.L. ‘08, founder and thenexecutive chairman of Go Daddy, made a $1 million gift to establish a veterans center at the University of Baltimore.

“I attended University of Baltimore on the G.I. Bill after returning from Vietnam,” Parsons said at the time of the donation.

“The discipline that I gained in the military, coupled with the University’s commitment to veterans’ re-entry into civilian life, enabled me to be successful in my studies and beyond. The new Bob Parsons Veterans Center will provide the facilities, staff and programs which will allow the University to exponentially increase their reach and make veteran

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advocacy part of their core mission.”

“The importance of veterans to our campus cannot be overstated,” said UB President Kurt Schmoke. “It’s not only that they remind us of the meaning of commitment and the value of service – it’s that they show by their example that the future is bright, for ourselves and for our nation. Just look at what the generosity of Bob and Renee Parsons started here at UB – look at how these veteran students, their friends and families have made it such an impactful, special place. We’re all proud of our vets, proud of the work that’s being done to help those who have returned from conflict. We always will welcome them to the University of Baltimore.”

More than 35,000 veterans in Maryland alone have returned from conflicts in the Middle East, and that number is expected to grow in the coming years as troop deployments are decreased. While students who have served in the military are known for their training, discipline, perseverance, teamwork and dedication, an important

part of their transition to civilian life can involve targeted coaching, job placement training and additional education.

The Bob Parsons Veterans Center addresses veterans’ needs, including academic advising, guidance on financial aid and veterans benefits, and career counseling through graduation and beyond. In addition, The Bob Parsons Veterans Advocacy Clinic focuses on veterans’ legal issues, building on the UB School of Law’s successful clinical program, which is ranked 17th nationally

by U.S. News & World Report.

The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.

For additional information about The Bob Parsons Veterans Center and the wide range of veterans’ services available, visit www.ubalt.edu/military.

V e t er ans in Fr anchising

Jim Mingey, Founder Founder& &Managing ManagingDirector, Director,VBS’ VBS

Foundations expected increase their support of Veteran-owned social enterprise franchises

It’s a win-win-win for EBV Graduates!

“EBV graduates can accelerate mental health impact not only for veterans but can also literally change the way local economies address mental health issues.”

James Mingey

The Entrepreneurial Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) is a consortium of ten major universities which include Syracuse University, St. Joseph’s University, Purdue University and seven others across the United States.

This EBV Network provides concentrated entrepreneurial support for an elite group of Veterans who are also provided superior transitional assistance for starting a small business including initial support from lawyers, accountants, consultants that can complement any EBV graduate company’s management team. The ability for an EBV company to access and accelerate these essentially cost free professional services has encouraged some EBV graduates to

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leverage those advantages and lead social enterprises to build self-sustainable social enterprises.

An example of what can be possible is The Veterans Corporation’s (TVC), an affiliate of Veterans Business Services (VBS), a Purdue EBV Graduate company. TVC secured funding from the McCormick Foundation and Major League Baseball for a private Service Disabled Veteran led company, VetsPrevail.

This support helped forge other key collaboration partners and TVC provided it $270,000 of funding from TVC to prove the efficacy of their theories on an initial cohort of 400 Veterans with PTSD. Vetsprevail developed an online engagement system based on Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) which has since benefited over 15,000 Veterans with PTSD. Not only is Vetsprevail innovative and now a profitable private company, its proven model is lowering mental health costs and improving VA’s capacity to deliver mental health services. A study in 2013 showed that the VA could save as much as 14 times each private dollar it spent for VetsPrevail mental health services. This type of collaboration creates a win-win-win for Veterans, taxpayers and solving mental health issues in society as a whole.

The funding described previously was followed by a number of additional private foundation grants from Goldman Sachs Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation and others (all private funders). TVC also led the charge to help Vetsprevail win a $50,000 Pepsi Challenge Grant to help market and promote their service. The final result: a sustainable Veteran owned company that greatly impacts social good.

The Purdue Alumni EBV Social Enterprise Train is leaving the station!

TVC’s original success has led to a plan to prioritize social enterprise franchises led by Combat Veterans. The new MyVA reorganization, instituted in 2015 by Secretary McDonald, calls for creating a “customer centric” environment in which public private partnerships will play a key role in delivery of social services for Veterans. Several Purdue EBV companies already promote and share a mission of improving mental health (their markets include both civilians and veterans who suffer and/or are stigmatized by their mental health conditions).

By aligning their missions with Foundations and the common goals of the Veterans Administration for improving mental health services. EBV graduates can

accelerate mental health impact not only for veterans but can also literally change the way local economies address mental health issues.

VBS is convinced that it should facilitate partnerships that would have a common thread of generating collaborations between Veterans, Foundations and local communities. The social enterprise structure then has a better chance of being self-sustaining Some of the VBS Social Enterprise Franchises in development led by EBV Combat Veterans include the following business sectors: • Physical Fitness

• Automotive Restoration • Agricultural

• Solar Energy Conservation • Telecommunications VBS Founder and Managing Director, Jim Mingey, is a decorated Vietnam veteran raised from a proud military background. An entrepreneur for more than 35 years, Jim can relate on a personal level to the needs of the veteran small businessperson, and possesses the practical knowledge to implement his experience in today’s market. Jim participated in the EBV Program at Purdue University, is a mentor at American Corporate Partners, developed the first approved franchise training program for the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) Program at Veterans Administration, and was instrumental in forming the first equity fund in the United States exclusively for veteran owned small businesses and franchises: The Veterans Opportunity Fund. Jim intends to keep on ‘advocating’ for veterans in franchising. www.VeteransBusinessServices.us

“Stay tuned for “Boots2Business” for Social Enterprises™” Franchising USA

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Darcella K. Craven and Chaffin, Veterans Jim Mingey, Founder & Damon Managing Director, VBS’ Business Resource Center

Solving Problems by Thinking Differently Many of you are familiar with the bestselling books “Freakonomics,” “SuperFreakonomics,” and “How to Think Like a Freak” by Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner.

For those of you unfamiliar, the authors look at problems quite differently than most of us and make a case for some quite unexpected solutions. So how can an author and an unorthodox economist help us? Let’s take a look.

You are a football coach. Your team is facing 4th down and 4 yards from your own 10 yard line. Should you punt? The statistics say no. The statistics say that you should never punt when it is 4th and 4, no matter where you are on the field.

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Why don’t football coaches go for it on 4th down?

Now let’s pretend you are a world class soccer player playing in the World Cup. The game has come down to your penalty kick. Where should you kick the ball to have the best chance for success?

Amazingly, the statistics tell us that kicking right down the middle is the best way to succeed. In fact, center kicks are more likely to succeed by 7 percentage points over kicks to the corners. So why do only 17% of World Cup penalty kicks get aimed to the center? Do these players not want to win? Do they not know these statistics?

According to Levitt and Dubner, the answer is neither one of these. Obviously, players want to win and they know the statistics. So, why don’t they do it? Well, what if the goalkeeper doesn’t dive?

You’ll look like an idiot. At least if you try to kick to the corners and the goalie

blocks it, you’ll get credit for a good effort. The football coach doesn’t go for it on 4th down because he might lose his job immediately if he doesn’t adhere to conventional wisdom. Here lies the problem. Often we care much more about what people will think than what gets the best results. Many times we’re faced with options that seem obvious, but upon further analysis, there’s another way that’s even better.

Think about some of the ways we operate: 1. We don’t like to admit that we don’t know something – many times the incentives we set for ourselves and others don’t have a lot to do with actual results and how well we do our jobs.

All too often, incentives don’t have as much to do with winning as they do with maintaining the status quo.

2. We operate within boundaries – Dubner and Levitt tell the story of Takeru Kobayashi, the former Nathan’s

“Think about how young children find out about things. They ask a lot of questions. They ask a lot of silly questions. They have fun. They are curious…This means they don’t rule out potential solutions that seem goofy or unreasonable.”

Hot Dog eating champion. When he began competitive eating, the record was 25 1/8 hotdogs eaten in 12 minutes. In his first contest he ate 50 hotdogs. Kobayashi broke the record by redefining the problem and not accepting perceived limits. He didn’t ask, “How do I eat more hotdogs?”

Kobayashi asked, “How do I make hot dogs easier to eat?” He saw the record as a non-issue and it was. He almost doubled the world record in his first contest.

We can do the same thing if we ignore many of the limits we face every day: time, financial, expectation, social acceptability limits. Don’t think that just because the majority of people do something in a particular way that this is the best way.

3. We think like adults – We are often overwhelmed with problems we face because they seem insurmountable.

How do we fix the educational system in America? Why don’t Americans save more? How will I pay off my debt? Oftentimes it pays to think small. Dubner and Levitt point out that in China, they improved student test scores by 25% to 50%. Did they develop a complex system? No. They noticed that one in four children has bad eyesight and provided free eyeglasses.

Think about how young children find out about things. They ask a lot of questions. They ask a lot of silly questions. They have fun. They are curious. Perhaps most important, they are unbiased. They don’t know as much as we do so they don’t carry around preconceptions that stop us from seeing things as they are. This means they don’t rule out

potential solutions that seem goofy or unreasonable.

4. We try to manipulate people into doing things we want them to do – we know that we should treat people with decency and dignity. Sometimes though, we don’t believe that doing this will give us the best result. Imagine you’re a non-profit and offer your donors the opportunity to give one time and never hear from you again.

We all know that receiving multiple solicitations from charities can get overwhelming and even annoying.

However, charities keep doing it because the perception is that it works.

One non-profit tried something different.

Smile Train is a charity that works to fix cleft palates in babies. They ran a “one and done” campaign where they promised donors that if they made a gift, Smile Train would never solicit them again.

You might have expected an uptick in donations at the beginning and a fall-off over time but you would be wrong. Only 1/3 of donors chose this option and today, Smile Train is collecting more donations than ever.

So to start the new year, make a commitment to yourself that you will begin to think differently. Admit what you don’t know. Remove boundaries that keep you from making the best decisions possible. Ask a lot of questions and look for answers to smaller problems. Lastly, incentivize people to do the right thing but don’t manipulate them.

At the very least, when your favorite football team faces 4th down, yell “GO FOR IT.” Darcella K Craven has over 20 years of experience in corporate, government, non-profit and military organizations.

She is currently the Executive Director

Darcella K. Craven

Damon Chaffin

of the Veterans Business Resource Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting Honorably Discharged Veterans, National Guard and Reservist and Active Duty personnel and their families with transitioning back into civilian life with starting and expanding businesses.

An Army Veteran, she holds a Masters of Arts in Management from Webster University and is currently pursuing her Doctors of Management focusing on impact of military experience on small business decision making. Darcella has been featured in numerous articles for her transition from the military and the welfare system to an accomplished business woman and is actively involved in many civic organizations. www.vetbiz.com Article co-authored by Damon Chaffin, VBRC Business Consultant

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7-El e v en ®

7-ELEVEN IS GIVING AWAY A WHAT?

You may already know that 7-Eleven is the world’s #1 convenience store. But did you know we’re also consistently ranked as a top-five franchisor? And here’s more news you’re going to like – especially if you’re one of the millions of men and women who’ve served in our military. (Drum roll please!)

Once again, 7-Eleven is giving away an entire franchise to one deserving U.S.

military veteran. OPERATION: TAKE COMMAND is back, and 7-Eleven wants veterans to know – we not only salute you – we need you!

WHY DOES 7-ELEVEN NEED VETS? That’s an easy question to answer.

Veterans have proven themselves as focused, hardworking and loyal franchise

partners. They have the skills and attitudes we need to keep 7-Eleven a leading franchisor. That’s why we’ve offered special military incentives over the years.

And that’s why we’re giving away a franchise.

GO AHEAD AND ENTER TODAY If you’re a veteran who’s interested in a brand new future, click here to enter OPERATION: TAKE COMMAND. But do it soon. The deadline to enter is February 26, 2016.

Not a veteran but like the idea of owning a franchise? We’ve got 7-Eleven franchises across the country. Find a location near you and apply today.

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