Guide To Franchising Your Business: Q&A With Manville Chan and Jeff Parsons, The Story of Ramen

Franchising a business can be a complex process, filled with legal requirements, strategic decisions and the challenge of scaling operations. To help demystify the process, 1851 Franchise spoke with Manville Chan and Jeff Parsons, co-owners of The Story of Ramen, about their journey to franchising and their advice for others looking to follow a similar path.

A transcript of Chan and Parsons’ interview with 1851 Franchise has been provided below. It has been edited for clarity, brevity and style.

1851 Franchise: Why did you decide to franchise your business?

Jeff Parsons: We decided it was a good time to start exploring our franchising because of the success we’ve had in our team building efforts here in San Francisco and the unique product that we offer. It’s a very distinctive experience-based food business. We focus on ramen noodles — which there seems to be a great worldwide obsession with right now — and the mix that we’ve found with companies that are really looking to have their employees get off-site and have something more engaging to do than simply going to a bar or to dinner is just plentiful. We have had so much success here in San Francisco that we believe that other major cities around the country could have similar success, so we’re looking to build upon the team building success that we have here with the experience based food business.

Manville Chan: We looked at other alternatives to franchising, such as maybe opening up a new location that we own, but just didn’t feel like we wanted to split ourselves or hire someone that we don’t know in another city. So we believe franchising is the best option for us to grow. 

1851: What advice would you give to someone thinking about franchising their business?

Parsons: I think initially you really do have to look at all those legal concerns and the structural concerns because state by state, there are clear designations and clear rules and regulations for all of the franchising. So I think early on, you just have to be prepared for all of the work that has to go into preparing the franchise in multiple states — that’s the biggest challenge. I think from the beginning, many small business owners like us who are looking to franchise understand their business, can easily train others to do the business and can help them set up the structure for success on the day to day business operations, but I think if you’re looking to franchise, the biggest thing to be aware of initially is all of the work that you have to put in for your FDD (franchise disclosure documents) and state-by-state regulations. That’s taken quite a bit of time, but we are in that position now where all of that is done, and we believe that we’re ready to move forward.

Chan: Other advice I would give is to make sure your business is scalable and trainable. We invested quite a bit in infrastructure, leveraging my tech background, to ensure that people can book on our website with payment routed through the franchisee. We set up the infrastructure so that anyone can easily manage it on the back end without spending a lot of time manually doing the work. Scalability is important, as well as branding.

1851: Why did you decide to engage a franchise consultant?

Chan: We wouldn’t be able to navigate the process of developing all these plans and the FDD in order to be able to franchise.

Parsons: I think the consultant also helps you really understand how marketable your product is and how distinctive the product is, plus a fair evaluation of the competition that you would face in the marketplace. So I think in this instance, a consultant is really critical to help you navigate — as Manville mentioned — all of the paperwork and the process, but also to be kind of an advisor on getting your brand and getting your product into the right places. 

1851 Franchise: How many franchise consultants did you look at?

Chan: There was one other we looked at at the time. 

Parsons: There have been a number out there. We searched around the internet, but doing the diligence and the interview process, we really narrowed it down to evaluating two different companies that better fit our goals and also which of those companies — and the representatives of those companies — we felt a natural connection with, because we’re looking at the long term viability of the business. While every company has many success stories to share, sometimes the people in that company make the difference — so that initial connection and the connection we felt as we were doing the interview process was important.

1851 Franchise: What made you pick the consultant that you picked?

Parsons: In addition to what we already mentioned, I would actually add that you really want to take a look at all of the offerings — everything that they’re going to do for you — and then be hyper aware of the cost breakdown, because there’s some costs that might surprise you along the way, and the best, the best scenario, is to have all of that fully disclosed in the beginning, so you fully understand what cost everything from the cost of getting Your business franchise opportunities set up, state by state, to the cost of selling, to the cost of marketing, to the individual commissions and so on. I would just encourage everybody who goes through that to be hyperaware and ask a ton of questions in the beginning about all of the cost, because there are many beyond just the monthly agreement that you might agree to for the consultancy itself; there are so many layers of costs that you really need to be aware of.

1851 Franchise: What was one thing you wish you knew about the franchise process?

Parsons: One of the things that I wish I had just been more aware of is the challenge of reaching the right audience with the marketing effort, because there are so many ways to get your message out that you can you can flood the market with a lot of messages and only reach a handful of people, or you can be very narrowly targeted in trying to reach the right people without doing a mass marketing effort, if you will. And I don’t think I gave that enough consideration early on — that the way of marketing to the right audience is very important and actually it’s very difficult, so marketing something like a McDonald’s would be very different from marketing a franchise like The Story of Ramen. Looking back on it, I think I would have liked to have been more aware, more informed and more prepared to deal with the challenge of trying to get your business to the right audience.

Growing and selling franchises is difficult. No great franchise did it alone. Want to learn more about how 1851 helps franchisors grow their franchises with confidence? Visit www.1851growthclub.com and see what we can do for you.