Fay Price -  CEO of the WrapZone franchise - sat down with me to share some of her story and advice for women looking at franchising their companies.

Fay and her husband Bruce McGee, her sister and her brother-in-law founded WrapZone in 1996 after a trip to San Francisco.  Wraps are a healthy, great tasting, fast food alternative, with a variety of nutritional fillings in a burrito-style.  Their first location was an instant success and they moved into franchising very quickly, working with a company that specialized in helping good companies to franchise.  From the beginning, they saw the potential of serving nutritional, tasty fast food, but Fay says they didn’t realize that they were ahead of a huge health trend and what an advantage it would give them.  In the current economic downturn, their long-held focus on nutritional value and their focus on healthy food has been a huge benefit to the company.  “Isn’t it time you discovered fast food you can feel good about eating?” clearly resonates.

Fay’s best advice for people considering franchising is:
1.    Do your homework & understand the concept clearly
2.    Talk to the right people; do lots of networking
3.    Get expert advice (lawyers, accountants, etc)
4.    Have all your systems in place

When WrapZone first opened, Fay was responsible for the creative side of the business, while her husband, Bruce, did the management.  When Bruce retired, Fay stepped up to lead the company.  As she says, it was a challenging transition but one that she has loved every minute of.  In Fay’s own words:

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have been too intimidated to get going.  But we were full of the passion & the possibility.  Then reality set in…  The beautiful thing for me it that it's helped me to grow; forced me to step up & do things I wouldn't have done otherwise.  It’s my life and my passion – I can’t imagine not doing it now.”

Fay has seen how technology can help or hinder her franchise growth and has seen the importance of technology grow over the journey.  She has recently discontinued all traditional advertising (finding it too hard to measure results) and is moving into buzz marketing, promotional campaigns and product sales and promotions.  Her franchises are in the process of moving to new software systems to support their continued growth and build franchisee satisfaction and management information processes.  Fay says she’s not a risk taker, and the success of the WrapZone does seems to support that, but she is still near the front of the new trends as she moves into buzz marketing and online promotions.

This article was written by Katryn Harris, CEO and co-founder of Open Box Integration, a company that helps franchises improve communications through the development of online communities, social media, online marketing, websites, intranets and custom software development