Franchise Tip No. 1

Financial Post:

The Dairy Queen in Sauble Beach, a southern Ontario holiday town on the shores of Lake Huron, has been a summer mecca for 50 years. So when the long-standing owner decided to retire at the end of 2007 and put the franchise up for sale, Shelley Buckton and her husband, Bev, saw an opportunity.
dairyqueen

They scooped it up, mortgaging their home in Newmarket, north of Toronto, to purchase the business and its real estate.
“Both of us spent our childhoods at Sauble Beach, and the DQ was always part of its simple charm,” says Shelley, a former senior executive with Technicolor Canada. “Put on the flip flops, hop on the bike, buy a cone for a couple of bucks and kill a half an hour hanging out.” It’s one thing, however, to decide to buy a business. It’s quite another to become expert in its operations – especially when dealing with a franchise, where success means not only pleasing customers, but also meeting head-office expectations.

For the Bucktons, a key first issue was negotiating the royalty they would pay to Dairy Queen. Read on…

Photo: Rick Chard.

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