All eligible companies were ranked according to a sales growth formula that combines percentage and absolute growth. From this list, the 50 Fastest were selected.  To be qualified for the ranking, businesses are required to be privately held, woman-owned/led companies in the U.S. or Canada and have reached revenue of at least $500,000 by the first week of 2007 and $2 million in 2011. Click here to read the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of this story.

More about the 2012 Top 50:

• The average revenue grew from $31.5 million in 2007 to $80.1 million in 2011
• Founded the Business: 90%
• Average age: 49
• Average Number of Projected 2012 Employees: 691
• Number of businesses owned by women of color: 14

We are so excited for what the future holds and thankful to all of our wonderful franchisees, Corporate team members, vendors and, of course, the mentors who have helped us along the way. Here’s to a great 2012 and beyond!

What steps are you taking in your business to ensure you’re planning for the future? I’d love to hear your stories about how you are evolving to keep up with the changing times and continue meeting your customers’ needs.

But you’re not looking for just anybody to buy into your business model. So how do you find the right people to run your franchises? A key aspect of building a strong franchise system is finding the right franchisees. The franchisor’s decision to grant a franchise to a franchisee and the prospect’s decision to join a particular franchise system are significant decisions for each and each must take the process to get to that decision very seriously. In my book, I cover some of the key lessons that we’ve learned about franchise development and that’s why I’ve created a helpful tool which includes 12 key considerations for questions to ask to help guide the decision making process, including:

1. Identify early in the call the purpose of the initial conversation and then get the prospect to confirm that they agree with that purpose.
2. Ask questions to determine what has occurred to prompt them to look at franchise opportunities and your franchise in particular. Most prospects begin to look at franchise opportunities following some significant event in their lives.
3. Ask questions to begin to identify the candidate’s objectives. What are the “must have” outcomes that the prospect is seeking as they explore franchise opportunities?
4. Make sure you know who are the decision makers/influencers in the process. If a candidate’s spouse will play a critical role, get the spouse involved early.
5. Ask them how much time they’d like to spend in the business and if they have a budget for the number of hours per week that they can invest in paying attention to the business.

Click here for more information on how to download the full “Questions to Ask a Prospective Franchisee” guide.

The CBA views franchise lending as an opportunity for increased business. As part of the panel, we discussed the partnership between the IFA and the CBA to further educate CBA member banks on the benefits franchise brands bring to the table. As a franchisor myself, I was able to bring a unique perspective to the table by detailing how BrightStar has built its strong standing with lenders and secured breakthrough access to capital for our owners by teaching them how to present to banks. That preparation, plus the support mechanisms we have in place to enhance franchisee performance and maximize the likelihood that banks are repaid, builds trust with lenders. Specifically, I highlighted two BrightStar initiatives that led to a verbal commitment from a major national bank to make accounts receivable financing available to BrightStar franchisees: providing full A/R reporting and monitoring, and moving the whole BrightStar system to utilize Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains’ financial system.

We already had financing in place for new franchisees going into this, but will have exciting announcements in the next 60 days regarding easier access to financing for existing franchisees opening additional territories that they secured through an area development agreement. BrightStar owners looking to expand will be able to apply their franchise fee for additional territories toward the cash infusion required for this additional financing so long as they have positive cash flows from their first location.

In addition, the verbal agreement to make accounts receivable financing available at much lower interest rates than factoring and in a way where customers remit payment directly to the franchisee will allow franchisees to accelerate growth. Many franchisees have held back their growth based upon a lack of access to capital and with increase accounts receivable financing and sales opportunities afforded through Joint Commission, 2012 will be an exceptional year for the BrightStar system.

Related event

• Artist: Shelly Sun
• Date: Monday, March 19th 2012
• Time: 12:00pm
• City: Shelly Sun in Austin, TX
• Venue: CBA Live! Consumer Bankers Association Annual Convention
• Country: United States
• Notes: Franchise Lending session of the Small Business Forum Panel included: Steve Caldeira, International Franchise Association President and CEO Darrell Johnson, FRANdata President and CEO
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

My book, “Grow Smart, Risk Less” is aimed at sharing knowledge and experiences geared toward helping entrepreneurs in taking the next step of expanding an existing business through franchising. But what about those who haven’t yet “jumped off the entrepreneurial cliff?” Perhaps you think you’ve got what it takes, but you still aren’t certain that being a business owner is for you. I recently stumbled upon a helpful series of questions in a guide by the Wall Street Journal that I wanted to share, as they encompass some key questions to ask yourself before embarking on a journey of owning a business:

1. Am I passionate about my product or service? Let’s face it: the start-up phase is stressful. You will find yourself questioning whether you’ve made the right decision, especially when the hours are long and the initial profits (if any) are lean. As the business owner, you’re also chief salesperson for your company. Your enthusiasm for your product or service— whether it’s hand-knit sweaters or top-notch tax preparation— is often the difference that hooks customers, lands deals and attracts investors. It’s unwise to start down the path of entrepreneurship unless you’ve got a zeal that will get you through rough patches and keep you interested long after the initial enthusiasm has faded.
2. What is my tolerance for risk? Whether it’s quitting your day job or signing a lease on a new space, nothing about starting a business is for the faint of heart. Just ask Ina Garten, who bought a specialty-foods store called The Barefoot Contessa in East Hampton, New York, in 1978 and has since branched out into cookbooks, television and a line of products. Garten tells aspiring entrepreneurs that you have to “be willing to jump off the cliff and figure out how to fly on the way down.” Even with enough passion to launch a thousand ventures, you could find any number of circumstances hastening your failure: a location that turns out to be less than ideal, a problem with city or state zoning boards or a kink in the supply chain that can’t easily be ironed out. There’s no guarantee of success, or even a steady paycheck. If you’re risk-averse, entrepreneurship probably isn’t the right path for you.
3. Am I good at making decisions? No one else is going to make them for you when you own your own business. Consider how you might handle these early decisions: Do I work from home or do I lease office space? Do I hire employees? Do I pursue high-end clients or sell to the masses? Do I incorporate? Do I advertise? Do I borrow money from friends or family? Do I use my entire savings? Keep in mind that the decision-making process only gets more complicated as time goes on, once you have employees or clients depending on you. The choices you make can lead to success or downfall, so you must feel confident in your ability to make the right call.
4. Am I willing to take on numerous responsibilities? While a corporate employee focuses on a special skill or role within the larger corporation, a business owner must contribute everything to the business. Solo entrepreneurs in particular must be versatile and play a number of roles, from chief salesperson and bookkeeper to head marketer and bill collector. If juggling many roles doesn’t suit you, entrepreneurship probably won’t, either. The recent economic downturn has made it more important than ever for business owners to have a good working knowledge of their companies’ finances. While you will undoubtedly learn much on this topic from getting your hands dirty, the more knowledge you have in advance, the better prepared you’ll be.
5. Will I be able to avoid burnout? Working seven days a week, losing touch with friends, abandoning old hobbies and interests and not making time for loved ones can quickly lead to burnout in the midst of starting up— and ultimately to business failure. That’s what happened to James Zimbardi, an entrepreneur in Orlando, Florida, who says he didn’t know any better when he started his first company in 1997 and worked as hard as possible, for as long as possible, until his creativity, enthusiasm and energy were sapped. By 2002, he was a broken man— the business took a downturn, and so did his personal life. Now Zimbardi is at work on his second company, Allgen Financial Services, and sticking to better habits to maintain work/life balance, such as not working on Sundays, making time for hobbies such as sailing and salsa dancing, and building close ties with other business owners through a faith-based support network.

I’ve found that those that have achieved success in their Corporate life are most likely to decide that it is time to make money for themselves rather than continuing to do it for someone else. These amazing individuals have a strong sense of self, understand what they do well and what they don’t and know how to hire to compensate for what they do not do well and they have a positive, glass-half-full outlook. Once they find the right opportunity where they can combine their hard work with something they are passionate about, they may take the next step.  That said, only 1 out of 100 people who look into buying or starting a business actually do it. This 1% are the special people who see the opportunity but also act upon it.

1. There must be a demand for the services or the products that the business is selling, and
2. Demand must be expandable to a larger geographical area (it can’t just be something that is a local flavor). The consumer demand has to be there in Florida as much as it is in Illinois to make franchising the right avenue because it’s about scaling to a larger geographical area.

It also important for the company-owned model that’s going to be franchised to be profitable and successful. But you have to do the same analysis to make sure that once you add in the fees that franchisees will spend, that they can be profitable as well. In this way, it is looking at both the franchise concept viability, but as or more importantly the viability for the franchisee. Consider how you’re going to pitch your franchise concept to prospective franchisees. Franchising a concept has to go beyond meeting a marketplace need. As a franchisor, you get to wear new hats, including the ‘franchisee recruitment’ hat. Be sure to consider whether franchisees would easily be able to see themselves doing the work you do every day and hone in on what makes owning your business truly compelling.

A feasibility study is also key and can help provide insight into the competitive landscape. To determine who competitors are, even a simple Google search could give you an idea of who is out there providing your product or service. From this, you can start to create a list of the ones that come up often. There are also ways to access public information on all of those companies to see how many franchise units they are selling, and how profitable are they, and how their franchisees are doing. And we go through in the book, step by step, exactly how to get access to this information that many business owners might not know how to tap into.

Another important element that plays into being franchise worthy is, as a business owner, understanding that you aren’t just in the business of selling your product or service anymore – you are operating your original business model but you also have a franchising business model as well. It’s not just about making sure your model is viable. But once you make the commitment you’re going to be a franchisor, for the sake of your franchisees and the sake of your business, you need to go back and be a student and understand that there’s a business that you came from and there’s a business of franchising, and they’re different. And, ultimately, you need to become a student of franchising to truly do it well.

1. Live your vision. As a franchisor, you must develop a new set of skills to influence your team – both franchisees and employees. Your franchisees and your employees need to have confidence in you as the leader of your business; they need to know that you know where the business is capable of going and how to get there. One of the important lessons I’ve learned is that setting the vision for the organization and doing so as a group allows everyone to be driving to the same goals; no one is waiting around for the boss to tell her what to do next. The path has been set and the team has been empowered to deliver the needed results. But what does it mean to live your vision? Having a vision in and of itself is not effective; this driving force must permeate everything that you do. From the perspective of your franchisees, they are not employees, they are investing rather than being guaranteed a salary, so they must have confidence in your leadership, and they must believe that following the model is the fastest, best path to success. Franchisees will not follow blindly, they need vision. The larger your business gets, the more time you must spend away from the daily details and on the big picture. Your time must be allocated intentionally to strategic thinking and looking outside the organization for the threats to and opportunities for your business and your industry. From an employee perspective, living your vision means establishing clear goals; and, once I had this, the organization knew collectively where we were, where we were going, and what needed to be done to get there, and I was able to get out of the middle.
2. Hire for the future. I learned the hard way over the past five years that hiring good people to fill an immediate need rather than hiring for what I needed to meet my goals in the following two years was cheaper but was also an inhibitor to growth. Once I began building job descriptions for the job that I needed two years out, and hired for that, the pieces the organization needed to grow began to fall into place. But we weren’t looking for just anybody to fill those key positions. It is so important to not only recruit talent that truly fits the culture and personifies your vision, but also be deliberate about how to retain exceptional talent. And as the leader, you always have to be recruiting. Once you know what positions you will need in the future, it is important to place yourself in situations to meet the people you may want to hire. Consider what events these candidates attend and the online groups they are members of. Find a way to spend time among the pool of potential candidates in their circles and empower members of your team to become recruiters of the talent that you need for future growth.

Click here to read the rest of the Franchising World article.

• Determining if a concept is “franchise worthy”
• Creating a high-performance culture
• Franchise development
• Building a powerhouse team
• Driving accountability to the smartest level

But in the spirit of serving as a resource, I wanted to pose the question: what do YOU want to know about? What problems are you looking to solve? I want to know how I can help. While we’ve had some great successes in growing BrightStar Care, we’ve made some mistakes along the way too and, if it’s going to help others on their journeys, I want to share what we’ve learned. What is on your mind? What do you want to know about getting started with franchising? E-mail me at shelly@growsmartriskless.com.

But is it just gender bias at work here? Not really. Perhaps part of it could be that, unless finance is their background, some women tend to shy away from the numbers? As a CPA, it speaks volumes to the banks to do the math to prove you will be able to pay back what you’ve borrowed. Stengel goes on to insist that this doesn’t mean that you need to prepare your own financial statements, just that you must understand them well enough to make sound decisions—and that you go to your fund raising meetings able to state your case with confidence and clarity. Here’s a minimal level of knowledge you’ll need:

• You must be able to grasp the impact any decision you make has on cash flow.
• You should be able to articulate your financial position well enough that a banker can be confident you understand the consequences of taking out a loan (or giving up equity).
• Learn your credit score, and know how to raise it so that you qualify for the least expensive financing.
• Keep revenue projections realistic.
• Be clear about when funders will start to see a return on their capital.

Click here for the full article.