Growing a Franchise
With more than 30 years in franchising, Sutton brings a disciplined approach to growth built around candidate fit, shared infrastructure and long-term franchisee success.
Franchise Sales Leader: Scott Sutton
Brand: Empower Brands
Scott Sutton has spent more than three decades helping franchise systems grow, but his approach to development has never been centered on selling as many territories as possible. Instead, Sutton focuses on a more durable question: Does the system have the right candidate, the right infrastructure and the right support to help that franchisee succeed after the agreement is signed?
That philosophy has been shaped by a career spanning franchise development, marketing, mergers and acquisitions, new brand incubation and portfolio management.
Sutton first entered franchising in 1992 while still in college, when he took an internship with a fast-food franchisor in Oklahoma City. That eventually led to a post-college role helping drive franchise sales in the petroleum sector.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but that exposure in college, the opportunity to really start to understand what franchising is, what it means, how people grow and, more importantly, how folks are finding that path to achieve the dream of business ownership, that’s where it started,” Sutton said.
Today, as chief development officer of Empower Brands, Sutton oversees development across a multi-brand platform, including the integration of acquired concepts and incubation of new franchise brands.
Over the course of his career, Sutton has worked across a range of disciplines and organizations, but the through-line has remained franchising. He has considered becoming a franchisee himself, but says the opportunity to help others pursue ownership has kept him firmly engaged on the franchisor side.
“Being in a role in a company that helps entrepreneurial-minded folks achieve the dream of business ownership is fulfilling, absolutely rewarding every day of the week and twice on Sunday,” Sutton said. “I love what I do.”
That perspective is important because Sutton sees franchise development as much more than lead generation and territory sales. Candidates are often making one of the most significant financial and professional decisions of their lives, and the franchisor needs to be prepared to support what comes next.
For Sutton, that means development and operations cannot exist in separate silos.
One of the biggest advantages Sutton sees at Empower Brands is the depth of experience the platform can provide across multiple concepts.
Empower Brands supports hundreds of franchise owners across a large network of territories and brands. That scale has allowed the company to build shared services around training, marketing, technology, coaching, onboarding and other critical functions.
That infrastructure becomes especially valuable when the company launches or acquires an emerging concept.
“When we’re having a conversation with a candidate that’s coming into a new brand or an emerging brand, one of the conversations centers around the experience of the franchisor,” Sutton said.
A candidate may be evaluating a young franchise concept, but the support organization behind it is not necessarily young. “Out of that scale, we’ve been able to develop a shared services organization that understands onboarding, that understands training, that understands technology, marketing, coaching, all of the disciplines,” he said.
For Sutton, that is one of the clearest benefits of a portfolio platform. The brand itself may be new, but the systems, talent and institutional knowledge supporting the franchisee do not have to be.
Sutton is careful not to suggest that a franchise development playbook is ever perfected.
Empower Brands has accumulated substantial experience in areas including incubation, proof of concept, launch strategy, franchisee training, marketing and coaching. But Sutton believes strong franchise organizations continue refining those systems.
“The widget is never complete. It’s never finished,” he said. “There is a substantial amount of institutional knowledge as it relates to incubation, proof of concept, launch, onboarding, training, marketing, coaching, mentoring.”
That willingness to keep evolving is part of Sutton’s development philosophy. “I’m never going to say it’s been perfected because I’m not someone, individually and personally, that believes we’re ever perfected,” he said. “I think there’s always an opportunity to be better.”
Sutton also believes one of the biggest mistakes emerging franchisors make is failing to clearly identify their ideal candidate profile.
Before spending heavily on franchise marketing, a brand needs to understand who its strongest prospective owners are, what motivates them and how the opportunity fits their goals.
“You really have to understand: Who is your candidate? Where do they live? Where do they trade? What are the triggers that help get them to act ? And then how do you shape your offering in a way that resonates with those folks that are most likely to be interested and willing to act on your brand?” Sutton said. “That takes some science. It takes some investment.”
But Sutton’s most important development lesson may be that faster growth is not always better growth. He has seen franchise organizations focus so intensely on territory sales that the rest of the business struggles to keep up.
Earlier in his career, Sutton worked with a company that intentionally capped annual territory awards. “We would come out of the gate at the beginning of the year and actually market, ‘We’re only awarding 30 territories. This is what we’re awarding,’” Sutton said. “Our attention is focused on making sure that they’re commercialized and launched in a productive and successful way.”
For Sutton, that approach forces franchise leadership to think beyond the sales budget.
“Every 10 or 20 franchise owners that sign, you have to make investments in the other disciplines in the company to be able to appropriately support those franchise owners,” Sutton said.
That may mean accepting slower development in the short term to create a healthier system in the long term.
After 30-plus years in franchising, Sutton understands the pressure on development teams to hit ambitious targets. But he also believes franchise brands need to resist letting short-term sales goals outweigh the long-term health of the system.
Sutton suggests one revealing exercise for any franchisor: Look back at the first 10 franchisees and ask whether you would award those same territories to those same people again.
The answer can say a lot about whether the company was truly selecting strong partners or simply rushing to get units sold.
For Sutton, the best development strategies balance both sides of the equation. A franchise company needs to grow, but it also needs to ensure the owners joining the system have the support, resources and fit required to thrive.
Every great franchisee had help buying a franchise. Want to learn more about how 1851 helps franchisees find the right franchise opportunity? Visit www.1851growthclub.com and start your journey.
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