Scaling Franchises with Purpose with Danielle Scott

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

Tullio Siragusa (0:18)

Welcome back to The Bliss Business Podcast. I'm Tullio Siragusa, and today I'm holding the fort down by myself.

And we're excited to have our guest today. Growth is exciting in any business. Every new location represents an entrepreneur, a family, a local team, customers, community, relationships, and a promise between the brand and the people who choose to build it. And this is why franchising, growth carries a very special responsibility, especially in franchising. That means franchise development cannot only be about sales. It has to be about fit, trust, support, ethics, and long-term sustainability. Today we will talk about responsible scaling, franchise development, entrepreneur support, brand trust, local ownership, and how leaders can grow networks without losing sight of the people behind every location. Our guest today is Danielle Scott. She's the Chief Development Officer at Alliance Franchise Brands. Danielle leads franchise growth strategy and network expansion across nearly 500 locations in North America.

She brings more than 32 years of experience in franchise development and operations, with deep expertise in franchise sales, brand development, and strategic scaling. She's also a certified franchise executive and certified franchise consultant, giving her a rare combination of practical experience, industry knowledge, and advisory perspective. Danielle, welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast.

Danielle Scott (1:58)

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Tullio Siragusa (2:01)

So for us, franchise growth is not just about expansion. It is about responsible expansion. That's what we're talking about. But from your perspective, what does that mean? What does sustainable franchise growth really mean from your perspective?

Danielle Scott (2:17)

It means choosing the correct people to be inside of your network. You owe it to your current franchisees to pick the best people, to work beside them and to be partners with them as well as partners with yourself. You owe it to your network and any future franchisees that may come along to your business because of the fact that if you don't have responsible growth and you're not doing it responsibly, and you're not picking the right people and making sure that you have a right fit, then you have poor validation later on, and your franchise system tends to not be healthy.

Tullio Siragusa (2:50)

Now, you've spent more than 32 years in franchise development and operations, and so how has your view of growth changed over the course of your career?

Danielle Scott (3:00)

Oh, geez.

When you're young and you're just in development, and the money is as good as it is, it gets everybody in. Everybody that has a checkbook and a heartbeat, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's turn it, turn it. Then when you get a little bit more into the career and you start to have responsibilities and you really start to look at your validation, like I said, you start to look at the health of your franchise network, you start to think, okay, it's not just everyone is allowed to come in, it's only a couple of people should be allowed to come in, a few people here and there, let's slow it down, let's take a really closer look at what's going on, let's figure out a system that helps vet people a little bit better and gives them more education about what's happening. Because I feel is if you're not educating them as much as you're looking into them, then you're not doing them a good service either. You're not doing a good service for when they turn over into operations and they're not really sure what's happening. That's not a good feeling for anybody on the team. It's not a good experience.

Tullio Siragusa (4:05)

So let's dig into that a little bit because Alliance Franchise Brands operates across marketing, print, signage, and graphics communication. Again, with nearly 500 locally owned businesses across North America.

What makes franchise growth unique in a network where local ownership and business services are also central?

Danielle Scott (4:29)

Well, can you rephrase that for me just a little bit? Because a lot of our business, even though it's business to business, some of it comes from the community, some of it's local, but a lot of it is really out there in the world, in the ether.

Most of our clients for our franchisees don't necessarily come from their community. I mean, banners, things like that for Little League, probably, yes. But what we're looking to try to achieve is to get into hospitals and large designs, talking to architects, finding out what they're building around your area or in your neighborhood, getting those national accounts to where, when they're in your neighborhood and they're in your territory, you're doing the signs for those. We just had America's 250th, and so a lot of our franchisees were at the seats of their government within their states and pretty large posters of George Washington and James Adams and everybody, Hamilton, anyone you can think of, all of the presidents. I know here in Annapolis, we have a huge display of all the presidents that have come and gone and been here through the state house and through the legislature. So it's pretty amazing to see what can happen and what they can do. And also, we like to do things like at sporting events and huge sporting arenas, where you see the large banners or posters of the best athlete and they're 20 feet tall and they're on the side of a building. That's what we're looking to do. That's what we want to do.