While fans around the country are busy unpacking their foam fingers and favorite jerseys and prepping their Buffalo wings and guacamole dip, Houston-area franchisees are gearing up for what promises to be one of their busiest and most profitable weekends ever.
While independent business owners will no doubt benefit from the influx of fans to the Houston area as well, franchise owners have a unique advantage since their brands are likely already familiar to visitors from New England, Atlanta, and across the country. Terry Powell, CEO of The Entrepreneur’s Source, a company that matches people with franchises to buy, puts it this way: “Being comfortable with a familiar franchise brand on a trip away from home takes the unknown out of questions about quality, service, and cleanliness.”
Shaun Gill, owner of two Houston-area American Family Care urgent-care clinics agrees. “Our franchise- and corporate-owned clinics in the New England and Atlanta markets have really created a great brand identity for us,” he says. “I truly believe that fans traveling from those areas, should they need us, will be pleasantly surprised to see AFC clinics here as well.” And between a flu season in full swing and crowds of rowdy fans, he’s expecting that plenty of people will need AFC’s services over the weekend.
Houston-based franchisees of other brands expect to benefit from the big game as well. Judy Brown and her son Jonathan, who own both a Papa Murphy’s take-and-bake pizza store and a sweetFrog Premium Frozen Yogurt just a few doors down, expect sales to triple this week, with each store offering 15-percent-off coupons to its sister store to drive even more traffic. Blimpie franchisee Sobhi Badra, who’s got the added advantage of having a store located near dozens of hotels, already had one of his highest-grossing weekends ever thanks to catering orders…