There’s a youth movement brewing in the franchising world,†a recent story in The Wall Street Journal reports. Published in late September, the story explains that as boomers are retiring, franchise brokers and franchisors are putting increasing efforts into recruiting new college grads. But is this a real trend?
The story quotes a small number of franchisors, including WSI, a Canadian-based franchisor of Web consultants, which says it is aggressively seeking young people, and direct-mail franchising chain, ValPak (watch the video interview about its strategy below). But three or four people painting their noses blue do hardly a trend make.
The story does offer more evidence. Several franchise companies were quoted as saying they had joined the Veterans Transition Franchise Initiative, known as VetFran, in order to attract young veterans. But the program gives veterans of all ages a discount off initial franchise fees of member companies, so that doesn’t really track.
Probably the strongest evidence that the story provides is this… read on.