The Next McDonalds (Big Idea)

Danessa Itaya Shares Strategies for Success, Supporting Franchisees and Achieving Balance

WITH OVER 25 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN THE FRANCHISE WORLD, PROPERTY MANAGEMENT, INC. PRESIDENT DANESSA ITAYA DISCUSSES HER SECRETS FOR GROWTH, SUCCESS – AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE.

When Danessa Itaya joined Property Management, Inc. (PMI) as senior vice president in 2018, she had no way of knowing the challenges that would lie ahead in the years to come – but she did know she was joining a unique franchise system that she believed in.

“We’re a little bit different than anybody else out there in the sense that we specialize in property management, not just for long-term property management or commercial property management, but we actually cover the whole gamut. Everything from short-term rentals to association management to brokerage, which is a new division we’ve just recently launched. Our goal is to be the real estate management solution for anybody – whether they’re an investor, whether they’re an owner who owns one or two properties – that is looking for a solution,” says Itaya, who became the company’s president in 2019.

As a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in the franchising industry, Itaya knows a thing or two about what it takes to be successful – and her track record of taking PMI to new heights through a pandemic and a recession is a testament to her abilities as a franchise leader.

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Franchisees Kicking Ass: The Franchisee is King

The Great Franchisee: Al Ferrari, Lightbridge Academy®, Port St. Lucie, Florida

The 25-year food services professional and father of two is starting a new chapter as a franchise owner with the fast-growing early education and childcare brand.

Al Ferrari spent a quarter-century in the foodservice industry, working in operations for brands like Sysco and Gordon Food Service. But the father of two says his true passion has always been for his sons. Now, Ferrari is leaving the foodservice business and starting a new career that will allow him to leverage his passion for childcare as one of the newest franchise owners with Lightbridge Academy*, the 60-plus-unit early education and childcare franchise.

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Yo Broker, Sell My Franchise

Why These Multi-Unit Sylvan Learning Franchisees Continue Investing in the Brand, Now With 12 Locations

Kent Kolbow started with the leading supplemental education franchise in 1998 with two centers in South Bend and Elkhart, Indiana. After Sarah Miller joined as a director in 2010, they teamed up as co-franchisees to grow the brand throughout the state — currently at 12 locations.

Kent Kolbow boasts a 30-year career with Sylvan Learning, the leading provider of personalized supplemental and enrichment education for students in grades K–12, with more than 710 points of presence worldwide. And in that time, he’s made impressive growth in the state of Indiana, where he began his career with the franchise as a teacher at a Sylvan Learning in Fort Wayne in 1991.

Shortly after joining Sylvan as a teacher, Kolbow moved into the role of director. And then in 1998, Kolbow purchased centers in South Bend and Elkhart, Indiana. In April 2010, Sarah Miller joined Kolbow’s locations as director and after quickly realizing her natural knack for the Sylvan model, Kolbow had a proposition — that they both become co-franchisees and continue to fill in the state. Ever since their business partnership, Kolbow and Miller have grown to 12 locations: 11 in the state of Indiana and one in Florida.

Miller, who previously worked in nonprofits with a focus on serving children at risk, always knew she wanted to serve others in her community and found Sylvan to be a great fit.

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The Bottom Thoughts

Franchisors and businesses are starting to show signs of frustration – why? Growth is slowing down.

In 2021, brands were growing like gangbusters. The pent up demand from 2020, a pandemic, life/death drove growth that felt good – scratch that, great.

Now, as 2022 starts to regulate, franchisors and brands are starting to hover over the panic button, for fear that the high growth plans won’t continue. This is a tremendous opportunity to recalibrate – to center expectations and explore data in a different way.

No matter how many times we hear that a franchisee took 4 months, 6 months, 5 years from the first impression of your franchise to the point they bought – we want leads. And we want them now.

So, a few things to think about as you get comfortable, in your own brain and your own brands, on how to navigate a different year from 2021:

1. Many new franchisors came out of the woodwork in 2021 – why? They too saw the opportunity. This may downshift slightly in 2022 – or settle somewhere back to 2019 numbers. New franchisors means new competition. Thus, spending to gain interest of franchisees is skyrocketing. This is bad for a few reasons:
2. When there are more brands fighting for a qualified and ready to buy candidate, a clearly defined vision becomes extremely important.
3. The cost per deal goes up.
4. Look backwards at your data from 6 months ago. Was traffic increasing? This is a good sign (as long as it has sustained) that you are headed in the right direction.
5. The easiest indicator of deals coming is obviously found in discovery days – but, look at your applications. What direction are those headed in?
6. If you change your mindset to focus on applications (or qualified leads), your expectations on monthly actions will change.
7. Always play for 90 days from now – staffing, spending, marketing, etc. It’s a micro look into the future, but can have profound effects on outcomes. Also, go 90 days in the future (mentally) and think through what you would do differently today to impact that milestone. Perhaps some insights come out of that.
8. How many of your existing franchisees are expanding? If you have an annual conference, consider hosting a development summit beforehand – how to grow with INSERT BRAND. This can help you understand internal indicators.
9. What brands do you admire? Look at their materials – visions, content. It’s Ok to imitate their modeling. Isn’t that flattery?