February 2017 Archives

In 2013 How Do You Roll - HDYR sushi made a big splash on Shark Tank.

However, the match with HDYR & Kevin O'Leary was not to be.

And did not make it past the post-show deal closing round and due diligence.

The fast-casual, create-your-own sushi restaurant franchise, How Do You Roll, was pitched on Shark Tank in 2013.

Yuen Yung and his brother Peter learned the restaurant business from their parents who ran a mom and pop restaurant in Chinatown, New York.

After college, the brothers opened the first How Do You Roll restaurant in Austin, Texas. On Shark Tank, they made a deal with Kevin "Mr. Wonderful" O'Leary -- $1 million for 20 percent equity."

"The deal with O'Leary fell through and the Austin restaurant closed, as did two Chicago locations.But there are still two How Do You Roll locations open - in Fort Myers, Florida and North Hollywood, California. " - Source August 2, 2016, 2paragraphs.com

HDYR was not deterred by their Shark Tank fiasco of getting a deal with a Shark only to lose it after the show.

They went on to sell franchises.

In fact, they inked a 25 unit development deal for Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, and part of Virginia with great fanfare.

Then from a QSR magazine article:

"How Do You Roll? currently has ten units open in Arizona, Florida, and Texas. The company has signed franchise and development agreements for more than 400 units over the next twenty years."

These agreements span Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, the Middle East, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Texas, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Western Canada." - Source January 17, 2014, QSR

What went wrong with these aspiring sushi franchise tycoons?

Here's the Yung's Shark Tank pitch on the ABC show.

Lots of Unanswered Questions

What's the status of HDYR franchising today?

What are the HDYR franchise owners doing with their businesses?

Who owns the HDYR concept and IP?

What are they planning to do with it?

Being a franchisor and building a durable and sustainable franchise network requires more than reality TV notoriety and a pitch.

It takes a financially attractive business model, a reliable supply chain, with great branding; solid operations, training & support, and great franchise owner recruitment.

For the 5 Most Fascinating Stories in Franchising, a weekly report, click here & sign up.

A franchisor needs to have an exclusive conversation with a prospective franchisee.

You don't get a sale until you have that exclusive conversation, dialogue or discussion. The sooner you get to the exclusive conversation, the shorter your sales cycle.

Many Vice-Presidents of Franchising know that their lead generation marketing mix and budget is not producing, but they don't why. Their sales cycles are longer and cost per acquisition is higher.

Some Franchisors rely too heavily on franchise web portals for leads. It is a mistake for capital intensive franchises to use web portals for prospecting. These franchisors need to rebalance their marketing budgets by including a significant portion for outbound marketing.

Why Web Portals Don't Work for Capital Intensive Franchises- The Web Portal is a Numbers Game

Franchise web portals are a popular way for franchisors to generate inquiries that hopefully turn into leads.

The VP of Franchising uses a web portal because he or she believes sales is just a numbers game. More inquiries turn into more leads and therefore more sales. This is simply not true.

Wasteful spending on franchise portals shows this.

The web portals do not create the necessary exclusivity.

A capital intensive franchisor will take time and effort to construct a compelling landing page which cuts through the clutter of other franchise concepts for sale on the web portal.

They take advantage of the web portal's filtering to ensure the most qualified candidates inquire.

They train their sales team to promptly follow up by telephone and email all the referred inquiries.

Suppose that the franchisor is successful in creating a compelling landing page and messaging. The most qualified candidate, talented with capital, takes the time to accurately complete the web portal inquiry form.

Now that's fantastic right? No.

Not so fast, something else happens. The inquiry from the prospect with talent and capital gets intercepted. Intercepted you ask, how and by whom? By the franchise web portal.

That valuable candidate who you attracted is also attractive to your competitors. The web portal operator knows that and will sell or deliver your candidate to your competitors.

One way this works is the following. The candidate finishes the portal's inquiry form qualifying process, and then gets a pop-up-box with suggestions for other franchise investments for them to consider and automatically submit their information to.

Now it's off to the races and the first franchisor to move the candidate from the digital world to the physical world where one-on-one over the telephone a franchisor can build a relationship and then the sale.

Seems a little unfair that you won the candidate's attention for your concept only to lose out to some other franchisor who got them on the telephone first.

Closed deals are a result of exclusive conversations with prospects.

Smart Franchisors don't send their best leads to their competitors.

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