Franchise Trends 2026: Why Franchisee Support is Changing Forever

Get the full recap from the New Orleans national conference! 

Giuseppe Grammatico shares the major theme of 2026: unmatched franchisee support. From AI callers to shrinking footprints and new funding models, this is everything you need to know before investing. 

Choose the right path at https://ggthefranchiseguide.com.


00:00 Introduction to Franchise Freedom Podcast
00:30 Host Introduction and Podcast Overview
01:53 Conference Highlights and Key Takeaways
02:45 The New Era of Franchise Support
02:54 Main Theme: Support in Franchising
03:58 AI and Automation in Franchising
04:44 Shrinking the Footprint, Growing the Profit
08:01 Technological Innovations in Franchising
08:52 Revenue Streams and Financial Strategies
08:52 Diversified Revenue Streams & E-commerce
09:45 Franchisee Support and Financial Planning
10:39 The "Right-Fit" Funding and Selection Process
11:01 Conclusion and Listener Engagement

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Transcript

Giuseppe Grammatico: 0:00

One thing that was talked about over and over again and that topic was support. For example, we had one franchise franchisor talk about the AI caller being able to handle 250 calls simultaneously all at the same time, which is absolutely amazing. Utilizing drone technology to take pictures and video of a neighborhood. All the roofs in the neighborhood infrared, looking for heat loss. Taking advantage of those videos and then scanning again after a storm to see if a roof had damage due to a storm.

0:32

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast, where you can escape the corporate trap through franchise ownership. Here's your host, Giuseppe gr, the franchise guide.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 0:45

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Giuseppe Grammatic, your franchise guide. Thanks for joining us today. We're approaching six years now of launching the show, January of 2020. Just wanted to thank each and every one of you for all your support, your questions and your feedback. For anyone new, we help corporate executives experience time and financial freedom via franchising. We cover all different type of topics. You know, startup versus franchise. What are the funding options in funding your first business, your first franchise. Things to be asking in due diligence, how to find your perfect franchise, and so much more. We always encourage everyone if interested in becoming a guest, send us a message directly on the website, ggthefranchiseguide.com. You can, uh, hit that contact form. We're actually redoing the site and just, uh, send us a message. We have quite a few new listeners, thank you for your support. I always mentioned this at the end of the show, but since, uh, we're doing kind of an intro here, if you have any questions or any topics you'd like for me to cover, even though they were maybe covered in the past, feel free to drop us a message and we'd be more than glad to cover that topic, or at least maybe on a future blog or social media post. All right, what are we talking about today? So, uh, I was out last week. Um, It was actually in New Orleans. We were at the Franchise National Conference. You've probably heard these shows before if you've been a listener for a while. Every six months, twice a year, we meet together as an organization. Over 400 people, over 125 different franchise companies. We have franchise consultants like myself. We have funding companies and partners on the franchise company side. We have presidents and founders and everyone else in between really taking a week to get caught up updates just to meet everyone in person, which is really nice. Hear about franchising trends, AI, what's working, what's not working, updates to each and every one of the brands. So it's really exciting and so much to cover. And every year, or I should say every six months, I'll do a show with an update. You know, my five takeaways from the conference. Today we're gonna talk about the one main or major theme as opposed to the five takeaways. There'll probably be some subtopics here but there was one major theme. One thing that was talked about over and over again and that topic was support. What do I mean by support? Just updates, changes what franchisors are doing in order to increase the odds and do everything they can, uh, to make each and every one of their franchisees as successful as possible. We talk with brands that maybe we had worked with in the past that had paused development, meaning kind of stopped, uh, accepting new franchise owners and candidates so that they can restructure their system. It could be due to breaks in the system, it could be due to rapid growth in the system. You know, with the goal of just pausing things in order to get every franchisee up and running as soon as possible. We've seen brands that are okay. They're continuing their growth and really one of the things that we talk about quite a bit is, you know, the franchise fee and the royalty. What do you get for those funds, uh, for that money? I would say the franchise fee for the most part really gets all reinvested into training and support and the launch of the business. It's really the royalty where the franchisor makes a majority of their income. But, we're hearing things such as the investment of millions and millions of dollars back into technology. The investment or reinvestment of money from those royalty payments that are going into things such as AI. For example, we had one franchise franchisor talk about the AI caller being able to handle 250 calls simultaneously all at the same time, which is absolutely amazing. Being able to really scale up a call center with two full-time employees uh, overseeing you know, calls. For emergencies or if the AI couldn't handle a call, would go to a live caller, but they were able to scale the call center to what was equivalent to hundreds of people with only two employees and have the AI handle the rest. And this was more for scheduling and, answering questions and things like that. That was a very common theme. The idea of a franchise is a significant investment. A lot of franchisees are funding this with you know, savings. Utilizing an SBA loan with a, we'll call it a 20, 30% down payment. Maybe it's a ROBS, rollover business start-ups. We're utilizing retirement assets, or even a home equity line of credit. There's so many different ways, which we cover in our funding podcast. But the franchisor is really accelerating things in order to get that franchise owner up and running so that they can start earning back on their investment. We talk about the idea of cash return. So whatever money you're putting down, maybe it's that 20% in the SBA loan, you know, getting up and running, generating revenue so that you can earn back the money you invested in that business. Going back to support, the major theme of the conference. I'm not saying that's all we covered, but that was a very common theme, especially when we sat down and spoke with the franchise companies one-on-one. They really cared for their franchisees. They really wanted to get those franchisees up and running especially if they're leaving their jobs right, full-time in order to launch this business. So, decreasing times to get up and running was, was big. Cutting costs. We heard from multiple brands specifically, uh, that were offering their franchise was in a, the venue, we call it a brick and mortar setting. So whether it be a standalone building, many of them we talk with were in a build out of a thousand to 2000 square feet in a shopping center, shopping mall. Cutting costs for things like cutting the footprint of the actual space, offering multiple options of, you know, depending on the, uh, footprint and how large of an investment you wanna make. In other cases, just permanently reducing the footprint for that specific brand in order to keep costs low, staff and what we call headcount as low as possible, uh, and things like that. So really digging into the numbers. Utilizing the feedback, the numbers that you're each and every one of the franchisees are sending in, that they are disclosing. In the item 19 in the financial representation, assuming they have a, a year under their belts at year end close, uh, utilizing that information, comparing it digging into the financials to see where they can improve. How do they lower cost of goods? How do they lower overall expense you know, various other items in order to keep that franchise owner as profitable, uh, as possible. Especially that first year, which we did a show talking about the, the builder year, getting that business up and running.

7:02

Hey guys. Thanks for listening. I hope you're enjoying the show. As a thank you for being a valued listener, wanted to offer you a free copy of my book, franchise Freedom. This book was written back in 2020, and it's my exact blueprint in helping you find that perfect franchise. I wrote it based off my experiences and wanted to pass that along to you. Wanna chat today? You could book a call directly on our website. Top right. Side of that screen and you can schedule a 20 minute call. We'll dive into if a franchise is a good fit. I help you get qualified and figure out what that perfect franchise match may be. So I hope you take me up on my offer. Once again, franchise Freedom. Download the book today for free or book a call with me directly, and we'll help you bypass all that information you find online. Most importantly, figuring out. If a franchise is the right fit, and then figuring out what that perfect franchise looks like. So thanks again for listening to the show and back to the show.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 8:01

Technology as we talked about was big. AI was, was a definitely a major theme. You know, really cool stuff. You know, I love technology and hearing about all the latest and greatest. Utilizing drone technology to take pictures and video of a neighborhood. All the roofs in the neighborhood infrared, looking for heat loss. Taking advantage of those videos and then scanning again after a storm to see if a roof had damage due to a storm. So that would be an insurance claim. Even utilizing a drone for power washing the roof of a stadium or a water tower or something where it is gonna be multiple stories high. That way that the person doesn't have to go up, uh, up there you just need that drone operator to go out on the roof for the power washing. To get up there and not have to get on a ladder and risk a potentially falling off that ladder. I don't know about you, but I, I'm definitely afraid of heights. So the technology was big. Revenue streams was also another, you know, we talked with a concept around waxing. Hair removal and adding various skincare lines to help the franchisee. And some required minimal inventory. Something of what I call an e-commerce play, where the franchisee was able to upsell all of their clients coming in and they can go directly to, to the site. It'd be tagged for that specific location, and they would, uh, earn the revenue or the profits on whatever skincare was purchased and automatically purchased, right? I joke around Amazon subscribed and save. You're getting that, that shipment every quarter, every month or two. Just automating things and getting a discount for setting up that automation. CRMs are big too. You know, utilizing CRMs. Tracking every metric in order to prove the system. Utilizing the AI and follow ups. For example, if you're getting a certain service like cleaning, basically the reminders for that next service. So support is big. This is, uh, not gonna be as lengthy as some of the other shows because that was really the theme. Franchisors, although not all franchise companies are created equal or the same, many of them have stood out. And the ones that stand out have that clear vision of where that business wants to be. Really takes the time to ask their franchisees for their feedback where they can improve. Sometimes the franchisees are just like, Hey, things are going well and the franchise are proactively just looking at their financials to say, Hey, you know what, we have a flooring brand we're using, you know, a lot of times 80% of, of our tiles or flooring is coming from these, uh, few SKUs. Why don't we go back and get rebates, which was also brought up at conference where we can get rebates on certain products, on window films and things like that. So that franchisee is essentially in many cases the rebate gets passed through directly to the franchisee increasing their margins for that job. Those are other, um, avenues. We had a salon suite type of business get to, to scale and, and now offer and work with the banks so that there were multiple lenders. These, uh, types of models are not SBA approved. Uh, so they're going out there originally with one, and now they have five or six lenders and different ways of funding these types of businesses, with a competitive interest rate. So, that's, that was the theme. You know, there's a lot of great other insights and specifics, and if you have a, a specific question or, um, you know, you wanna dive deep, best way is just to go to the website, ggthefranchiseguide.com, and you could book a call directly there. I'll ask you a few questions to set up a 20 minute right fit intro call. For anyone listening in or newer listeners, there's no cost for our service. We're able to assist at no cost to you. We are paid just like a real estate agent. We're paid directly from the franchise brand. No cost aside from time. We'll definitely have you, um, figure out quickly and get through all the noise and figure out if a franchise is a good fit, and then what does that ideal perfect match look like for you? That's the area we really specialize. What's, what's that perfect match? What's the availability in your market? And we take it from there. That's what I love doing and that's my main focus is really helping individuals, corporate executives, uh, a lot of people coming out outta the military trying to figure out what the next steps are in their career. That's where we were able to assist. Let's map out what this, uh, specific franchise looks like for you, not necessarily focusing just on the widget or the service or the product, but specifically what does your role look like? What's the average day in life where you're located? Is it working from home? Is it at an office or a physical location? We figure all that together. With every one of the companies that we talk with, there's this franchise avatar you hear me talk about all the time. Who is their ideal fit? As a franchise owner, and that's where we really help. We know who those fits are in order to make the introductions to the brand. If you wanna go in a little bit more detail, certain industries, brands more than glad to, to go through that with you. If you wanna be a guest, you can, uh, send that information to the website. And if you just have any suggestions, I try to check my social media daily. You can leave a comment. We're on all the platforms, except for Threads. The fastest way is to go to the contact form or book a call, that'll hit my inbox. I check that multiple times a day. Really excited to share any other feedback or updates that, that we had learned at the conference. But again you know, we go to these twice a year, but I'm on the phone with at least one or two franchisors every week. So there's any specific questions you want me asking just in general not waiting till our next conference in July, let me know. More than glad to ask on your behalf. Use me as a resource. We're going down the list of topics. We may be talking about a future episode on a brand new franchise versus a resale that's come up. I noticed that more in social media, in the comments that may be a topic we handle in the future. So thanks again, uh, uh, everyone, we will talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.

13:25

Thanks for tuning in if you want to learn how to make the transition from corporate to owning your franchise. Join Giuseppe on the next episode. You can also follow on all social media platforms and achieve financial and time freedom today.