John Francis, "Johnny Franchise", has seen franchising from every angle: franchisee, franchisor, multi-unit owner, and now strategic advisor to over 50 brands. In this conversation with Brendon Dennewill, John cuts through the AI excitement with two questions every franchisor board should be asking, and most aren't. What you'll hear isn't just about technology. It's about what actually drives performance at scale: clear leadership, franchisee trust, and the discipline to focus on what really matters. If you're building a franchise system, or helping one grow, this one's worth your time.
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John W. Francis | Franchise Expert, Speaker, Adviser, Coach & Mastermind Moderator of Next Level Franchise, Inc.
John W. Francis has a LIFETIME of experience in franchising. His exposure to franchising began when he was just a child in his family’s hair salon system, “The Barbers,” which was the 1,000-plus unit, publicly traded and international organization that franchised the brands Cost Cutters, City Looks and We Care Hair. He later joined the family business, playing a major role in the integration and merger of The Barbers into Regis Corporation in 1999. |
Brendon Dennewill: Welcome back, everybody. Today I'm joined by John W. Francis, otherwise known as Johnny Franchise, a franchise industry veteran with over 30 years of experience spanning franchisee, franchisor, multi-unit owner, and advisor roles. He's worked with over 50 brands and now helps growth-stage franchisors scale through advisory boards, masterminds, and executive coaching. Known for his relationship-driven leadership and practical approach to scaling, John brings a unique perspective on how to build systems that grow without breaking. John, welcome to the podcast.
John W. Francis: Thank you, Brendon. Really glad to be here.
Brendon Dennewill: It's great to have you. We're practically neighbors, but here we are doing this virtually, I guess to keep everyone on the same playing field.
John W. Francis: Well, I had to go all the way to Las Vegas to see you at a conference.
Brendon Dennewill: Exactly. It was really good to spend a little time with you in Vegas last month. Johnny, let's dive right in. You're focused on advisory boards and masterminds in particular these days, what trends are you seeing in growth-stage franchisors right now?
John W. Francis: I'm seeing a lot of different things, but in a general sense, people are more focused on effective leadership than on growth and unit numbers. I think people have realized it's harder than it looks to scale and grow. I talk a lot about the difference between growing a business and scaling a business.
For your audience, a lot of it comes down to data and technology. There's plenty of both across the franchise world, but people are starting to realize they need to focus on what really matters — because there's so much noise, it's easy to get overwhelmed and distracted. Ultimately, in the franchise model, what's critical is franchisee performance. So focusing on unit-level economics and building that franchisee relationship — those are the fundamentals, and they never seem to go away.
The other thing, of course, is AI. It's everywhere, and people are trying to figure out what to do with it. I stay focused on a simple reminder: your job is to run a franchise company, not a technology company. You use technology to do the franchising — but don't lose sight of who you are. Sometimes the excitement around AI causes people to forget that the business they're in is supporting franchisees who need to be successful. When you do that well, everybody wins.
Brendon Dennewill: That's really good advice. Even if you want to invest more time and money into AI, make sure it's focused on that franchisee experience — because if it doesn't positively impact the franchisee experience, you're probably just wasting your time.
John W. Francis: Exactly. People get excited, and then two months later they're frustrated when it didn't do what they expected and they want to change course. Too much change is the problem. Implementation is key.
Here's something I've been thinking about at the board level with AI — and I want to share it because I think it's useful. Everybody knows you're using AI. So the question isn't are you using AI. We expect that. The first question is: where's the return on investment for the AI spend? Show me a measurable ROI on the time and software investment.
The second question is more difficult: what are you doing with the capacity being freed up by AI? If a process used to take two weeks and now you can do it in two days, you've got new capacity. Are you reallocating it? Eliminating it? Doing something even more valuable with it? That's the goal — because we can now do even more of this other thing with the capacity we've recovered. Those are the questions we ask at the board level, and then we really challenge the team to prove it.
Brendon Dennewill: That's a great reminder. AI is the next wave of technology — the same way franchise brands had to adopt websites 20 years ago, and email before that. The same discipline applies every time: be strategic about it. It's not a technology decision. It's a strategic leadership decision. That's what I hear you saying.
John W. Francis: Yes. A lot of people want to race to what's new because there's excitement around it — I get that, I'm curious too. But make sure whatever you're doing is focused on the right things. Improving your emails is not changing the business model.
Training is usually the first place to look in franchising. Training never ends. Franchisees sometimes forget what's already available. Repackaging and re-communicating what's already working inside a brand is low-hanging fruit for AI. You don't have to use AI to create a bunch of new stuff — make better use of what you've already got. And that, to me, is an easy win with strong ROI.
Brendon Dennewill: And what you were saying about time savings — it's going to look different for every company, every brand. But they can all ask themselves the same question: we've saved Mary two hours. What is Mary going to do with those extra two hours? That's a real question every leader has to answer.
John W. Francis: Exactly. It's easy to get distracted and fill that time with things that don't really matter — it's human nature. But it's a leadership question. We've got time and money; how are we spending it? What do we do when we find improvements? We want better performance, but there's more to life than just making money. We want to take care of our people and build a whole business.
Brendon Dennewill: Well, and it's really hard to get performance without clarity. When a brand starts a conversation with us, what they're ultimately imagining and wanting is a CRM built for the future they're scaling into whether that's 50 units trying to get to 200, or 25 units trying to get to 50. They envision technology through which all the data flows so that everyone, Fran Dev, franchisee owners, everyone has the information they need.
But we can't get there until we go higher up. We call it people, process, and then data and technology. We cannot implement a new CRM, what we call a revenue system for a brand, if we don't first map out the processes they're trying to embed in the technology, and then identify the data they need at each step from marketing to sales to service. And before we even get into process, we have to confirm the leadership and culture are there to support whatever happens with the implementation.
John W. Francis: You've got to look at the whole picture. As a business really scales and goes from growth mode to scale, leadership becomes even more critical — and it requires a different style of leadership, because people are now responsible for different things at different levels.
I was just at the Multi-Unit Conference last week, and one of the breakouts covered a lot of technology and data architecture questions, like, if you don't own your data, can you really use it? Do you need a data warehouse? The interesting answer was that it might not matter the way it used to, because of how connected everything has become with AI and modern automation. What used to require a lot of infrastructure may not anymore.
What I do understand is that what used to work isn't necessarily the same anymore. So you really have to work with people who know. And as an owner, as a leader, you have to accept it's never done. What you thought was great five or ten years ago, you've got to be willing to adapt. The older I get, the more I see the same thing play out again and again.
Brendon Dennewill: As they say, some things change and some things stay the same, and you have to be very clear about which is which. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And that's really good advice, because we see it all the time: everyone gets blinded by the shiny object they think is going to solve all their problems, when in fact you still have to do the fundamentals correctly.
John W. Francis: You still have to talk to your franchisees. They still have to trust you. They still have to want to be in the business. The model still has to work. So yeah, the fundamentals don't change. And maybe that's where we started, if AI can help you take better care of your franchisees, then great. Do it. But if not, wait a couple of months until something more useful comes along.
Brendon Dennewill: Exactly. Show them how to improve results first. Help first.
Brendon Dennewill: So, Johnny, on this topic, where do you see franchising evolving, and what does that mean for operators and leaders?
John W. Francis: I see franchising evolving around efficiency. Everyone seems to be driving performance through better systems, better training, and using technology to measure behavior and performance in real time. There's even new AI-powered camera technology that can monitor and measure operations at the physical level, t's fascinating.
I think things are changing toward efficiency and improved results. At the franchisor level, brands are building smarter. At the franchisee level, people are building smarter too. There's a growing recognition that starting with one location is sort of buying yourself a job, but getting to five or ten, now you've got a real business. That mindset shift, from buying a franchise to scaling a franchise, is where I see the biggest evolution. And technology and AI are clearly driving it at every level.
Brendon Dennewill: I was going to ask you about that because I know you like to differentiate between growing and scaling. One way I typically frame it is: growth is 2x and scale is 10x. And of course, there's no shortage of books written on those topics.
John W. Francis: Yeah, absolutely.
Brendon Dennewill: And the next generation of thinking pushes it further, how do you go from 10x to 100x? Which is almost built into franchising, because most franchisors who reach 10 locations know they can get to 100. They're only 10x-ing from 10, but they're 100x-ing from one.
John W. Francis: You're right. It's changing, and it's happening faster. People expect it to happen faster, which creates a different kind of pressure, because when it doesn't, things go wrong. And things go wrong all the time. As you grow, the people change, the systems change, the dynamics change, the competition changes, the marketplace changes. Everything is changing, so you really have to adapt.
Sometimes brands find me when something's already broken, they grew too fast, or too slow, or their people aren't happy. There are signals of trouble. My job is to get to the root cause. I ask: do you have this? Who's doing that? What's missing, what's broken? It's not as easy as it looks. And I think people forget that because they only see the superstar examples, the brands that went from here to there seemingly overnight, all the money, everyone successful. But of course, it wasn't that easy. For every spectacular success, there are 200 that failed.
Brendon Dennewill: And no one talks about that.
John Francis: No, they don't. I was actually debating this at IFA with some friends. Why do we keep seeing franchisees fail, with all the expertise out there, all the books, programs, brokers, consultants trying to help people succeed? The answer we kept coming back to was: franchisees don't do enough due diligence. If they really knew what they were getting into, who they were getting into it with, what was truly expected of them in terms of time, money, and energy, if they had clearer, fuller expectations up front, they'd make better decisions about whether to buy into a brand. And we'd see fewer failures and more satisfaction across the board.
That to me is the big gap today. I'm not sure where the full solution is yet, but I'm working on identifying the problem so I can become part of the solution. Because I love to see people win in franchising.
Brendon Dennewill: I want to pose this to you, John. I think the reason you're in such a strong position right now, running masterminds, speaking to large groups where franchisors and franchisees are all in the same room unpacking challenges, is that it all seems to come back to the same two things, every time, regardless of the era.
The first is growth or scale. If you're not growing, you won't have most of these issues, your systems and processes remain stable. But the second thing is mindset. If you are growing and scaling, the faster you grow, the more things are going to break, more quickly and more often. That's actually what you want. So if you don't want that, don't do it. But if you do, go in knowing things are going to break and you're going to fix them as you go. What got you here isn't going to get you there. It seems relatively simple from that perspective, but of course, you still have to actually do it.
John Francis: Right. Ideas are cheap and easy and fun. Doing the work is the hard part, it's expensive, it takes longer than expected. I think you're right: it's a balance. You have to grow, scale, innovate, and adapt, but you still have to execute. And people can only take so much.
There's a real thing called change fatigue. I've seen it time and again in franchising when there are too many new initiatives piling up. You have to manage the pace. That's why I'm such a fan of franchise advisory councils. If you push everything through an advisory council, it will usually help the franchise system, not just the franchisor and not just the franchisee, but together. You determine what the real priorities are and why. That clarity and alignment between all sides makes things go a lot better. Not always faster, but better. Because it can be too much, too fast.
You only have so much time and money, and people only have so much bandwidth. It's a delicate thing. Everyone seems to want to go as fast as possible, all the time. I think that's unnecessary, unhealthy, and frankly not worth it. Better to be intentional, focused, and strategic, and to always remember you're dealing with people. That's what really matters.
Brendon Dennewill: Which brings up something we're seeing shift in leadership culture. Our generation, and even our kids, because they grew up around us, came up in a very competitive world. The more capitalist the society, the more competitive it is. But what we're seeing change dramatically, and AI is part of what's enabling it, is that leadership teams are moving from a competition mindset to a collaboration mindset. You don't have to build everything yourself. Collaborate with people who are already doing the thing you need. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every time.
John Francis: I think that's the right approach. Franchising has always worked that way, people in this industry are genuinely willing to share and help. What makes franchising so much fun is that collaborative spirit.
Brendon Dennewill: Exactly. And that's one of the things that's so attractive to me about the franchise world, it's collaborative by nature. We're not going to try to do this alone. We're going to do it together, in partnership with franchisees.
John Francis: Right. And because I grew up in franchising, I kind of take it for granted. But that's how I approach just about everything I do, I can't help it. It just feels natural. Work together, figure it out together. Never start with a blank sheet of paper. Always start from somebody else's example or an existing model you can build on.
Brendon Dennewill: Johnny, what's one belief about growth or leadership you've changed your mind on?
John Francis: Something I've changed my mind on. Wow, lots of things. But I think the biggest one is patience. I've become more patient. It's okay to be patient. Things take time. People take time. If there's clarity, direction, the right skills and capacity, and both the will and the ability are there, things still take time. Don't be too patient, of course; you can wait too long. But I'm learning that as long as you're focused on what you're doing and why you're doing it, you don't have to be in a constant sprint.
Brendon Dennewill: You hear more people talking about "slow is smooth, smooth is fast." If you move too fast, you break things and leave people behind, which is never a good outcome. I think about this African proverb a lot: if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I was born in Africa, so I feel like I've earned the right to modify it a little, and my version is: if you slow down just enough, you can actually go far together and still move at a good pace. You just have to make sure the people coming with you are still on the train.
John Francis: Yeah. Franchising really is a combination of going fast and going together. When a franchise system is really at its peak, everybody's learning together, everyone is in alignment, and motivation runs on all sides. It's not us versus them, it's us versus the competition. When there's internal trust and alignment, you can produce some powerful results. I've lived it. I know how that works, and it's fantastic. It doesn't always last, but that's the secret of franchising. When everybody does what they're really supposed to do, everybody wins.
Brendon Dennewill: So, Johnny, you've spent a lot of time, through masterminds, advisory boards, and decades of conversations in franchising, talking about this kind of thing. When there's complexity or uncertainty, which we have plenty of right now, what are the guiding principles you come back to when you're advising organizations that are stuck?
John Francis: My work is usually with the owners, so I'm generally focused on the owner's point of view. I like to say the owner should have a plan first, and then the business should support that plan. There's a business plan, but it follows the owner's plan, because in private enterprise, the owner should benefit.
So my starting point is always: what does the owner really want, and why? Then, how do we get the business to deliver that?
My approach is asking thoughtful questions to help people see what they didn't see before without making them feel foolish for having missed it. When someone is in a complex or really messy situation, I try to back up and break it down. Who are the people involved? What's their motivation? What's the common goal, is there a common goal? What's broken? I try to understand different perspectives, and I can usually do that because I've sat at every side of the table in franchising. I know how to articulate what each party is thinking and feeling.
Sometimes that makes me useful as a kind of translator. But it really comes down to breaking things down and focusing on what's best for the ownership involved, whether that's the franchisor or the franchisee.
Some of the toughest work I do is when franchisees are really stuck, not responding, not performing, not happy, not able to get out of their own way. And the franchisor asks, "What do we do?" My answer is usually that there has to be a breakthrough, because you cannot want it more than they do. It's their business. So I ask different questions to get to the root of what they're trying to accomplish. That owner probably lost sight of the vision that brought them to franchising in the first place. You have to treat them with humanity and respect and get them back to: why did you do this? What happened? Because it's clearly not working, how do we reset this in a way that's fair and reasonable?
Brendon Dennewill: I think what you bring to a lot of people in your role, because of all your experience, is that outside perspective. I love the analogy of the bottle with the label — you can't read the label from inside.
John Francis: You can't read the label from inside. Exactly.
Brendon Dennewill: And through questions, you're essentially saying: this is what I'm seeing. What are you seeing? What are you feeling?
John Francis: A lot of it is asking: how did you get here? What I find is that leaders are making choices as they move through a situation, that's normal. What they don't realize is the cumulative effect of those decisions layering on top of each other. So they forget how they got here.
I'll say, "You were there, and now you're here, walk me through it." It's never a straight line. Having that objectivity and asking those questions helps reframe the reality. And for me, it's often about zooming out to the biggest picture. This situation is driving you nuts today, but put it in context of the quarter, the year, the long-term goal. If someone says, "I want to sell my business," great. Let's make a plan. When? How? Why? There are lots of ways to get there.
Creating structure and accountability is a big part of what I do. Not as someone else's job, as simply the way we do things. That takes time and effort, but once it's in place, true accountability is what transforms an organization into a high performer. I've seen it in all kinds of companies. The difference between the ones that perform and the ones that don't is almost always clarity and accountability. When those two things exist, things happen well and fast. When they don't, things drift.
Brendon Dennewill: It's interesting, thinking back to IFA last month, the keynote speakers are asked to speak for a reason: they've been incredibly successful at doing the thing that thousands of people in the room are trying to achieve. Whether it was a franchise brand like Chick-fil-A, which has become synonymous with successful franchising, or a massive multi-unit operator running multiple brands with billions in revenue, the one thing that seemed consistent across every story was culture. They've figured out a culture, but it's not just the touchy-feely version of that word. Part of it is being very clear about how decisions get made.
Which reminds me, about ten years ago, I had a coach who said, "Brendon, 90% of leadership is making decisions." I'd never thought of it that way, and it was absolutely right. What took me a few more years to learn was that making a decision doesn't just mean deciding to do something. When you make a bigger decision, you're also deciding what one or two things you're going to stop doing. And what reminded me of that was what you said about people who are stuck, where decisions stacked on top of each other because they kept adding things to their plate instead of removing something when they added something new.
John Francis: It's a common pattern, especially in American culture, full throttle, always wanting more. On occasion, you have to moderate yourself. You have to define success on your own terms. There are limits, and too much too fast just takes all the fun out of it.
Brendon Dennewill: Right. So, Johnny, when you're working with a system where the franchisor and franchisees are all in the same room and there's misalignment, because when a system grows, things change and break, how do you keep alignment during rapid growth?
John Francis: Great question. At the core of it is communication, lots of communication, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside. You need to learn and listen from each other. Advisory councils do that. Conventions and conferences do that. But structured communication is the key thing I see missing in a lot of brands when they're growing fast, going from 30 to 50 to 80 locations. There's a lot that can go wrong, and without structure, it becomes random chaos. People tune out or don't know what to listen to anymore.
I've lived through that. I know how it feels. So you maintain culture and alignment through strategic, structured communication. And making sure that both franchisors and franchisees understand how they're connected to each other, that they genuinely need to rely on each other. That interdependent relationship is a mature one, and it takes maturity and real understanding to engage at that level.
Once the franchisor, franchisee, and even the suppliers all truly realize they need to work together to succeed, things just start to click. That's when you have a breakthrough brand. I've seen it. I've helped make it happen. It's really hard to sustain all the time, but when it's there, it's powerful.
It does not happen by accident. Leadership has to be aware of it and put the mechanisms in place before misalignment becomes a problem. The symptom is never the real problem. We all know that, but we chase symptoms all the time instead of the root cause. So the word that really comes to mind for me is communication, and very effective listening.
Brendon Dennewill: Yeah, it seems so simple. All you have to do is talk to each other.
John Francis: Simple is not easy, right? But I've seen what happens when I get into a brand and start asking questions and listening carefully, sometimes I'm listening for what's not there. Then I ask questions around that. "What if you did this? Have you ever tried that? Why not?" I bring along best practices and that outside perspective. Having done this for decades across many brands, you start to notice the same patterns. That part becomes second nature.
Brendon Dennewill: At least you can read the label.
John Francis: Well, I can read the label. But here's something that came up just last week, there are people who actually want to mislead you. I don't want to say they're lying to you outright, but sometimes they're lying to themselves, and as a result, they're lying to you. And that makes things really hard. When you're dealing with people who, even unintentionally, aren't playing with the facts, that's a whole other layer of challenge. It's one thing when everybody's honest and operating with integrity; it's still hard. But throw some human chaos in there and it becomes really something.
Brendon Dennewill: Without that honesty, yeah, it's almost impossible to help. And actually, one of the best pieces of advice I've come across recently wasn't directed at me specifically, but it landed: it all starts with being honest with yourself. Because if you're not being honest with yourself, the chances are you won't be honest with the people who are trying to help you or collaborate with you.
John Francis: Exactly. It's just life. And it's what keeps things interesting, I suppose, there's more than one right answer, and things are constantly changing. Our job is to make the most of it and help other people as best we can.
Brendon Dennewill: John, as we wrap up, I want to ask one last question. What excites you most about the next generation of franchise leaders?
John Francis: I see leadership evolving, and I see a lot of younger people coming up, I watch my own kids and their friends, that generation. They're in their late teens and early twenties right now, and they are smart. They're funny. They can communicate, they can articulate, they're capable, and they know how to do things faster than we ever did at that age.
I'm genuinely excited about the potential I see. These people want to do good things for the right reasons. So I'm very optimistic about the next generation, and the one after that. I think there are a lot of people doing a lot of good work. And I think franchising will continue to be a major vehicle for getting those things done.
Brendon Dennewill: I know we could probably talk about that for another ten minutes. But I think you're spot on. One of the things I love most about doing this podcast is the reminder, and I'm sure some Greek philosopher said it first, that the best way to learn is to teach. And what I've realized with my kids, who are similar ages to yours, is that while you spend all those years thinking you're the one teaching them, somewhere around 16 or 17 you suddenly realize they've been teaching you too. About how to become a better version of yourself.
John Francis: Yeah. Life is good.
Brendon Dennewill: John, thanks so much for joining me. I've been looking forward to this conversation since we saw each other in Vegas last month, and I look forward to the next one.
John Francis: Thank you. I appreciate being here to share ideas. We covered a lot of ground, and I'm happy to be a resource out there.
Brendon Dennewill: Absolutely. I'd love to have you back in three to six months to see where we're at with how AI and franchising continue to evolve.
John Francis: Yeah, we'll see what comes. Thank you.
Brendon Dennewill: Thanks, John.