The Good, The Bad, and the Fraudulent: A Brief History of 75 Discovery Days

A few weeks ago, we hosted our  75^th discovery day at the corporate offices in Dunedin, FL.   For those of you not in franchising, a discovery day is when potential owners come in to meet the Big Frog staff to get approval for their purchase.  I thought I would share our favorite "epic fail"  Discovery Day stories.

• The Love/Hate Relationship: This couple came in very gung-ho about our concept.  One of them loved everything about it; the other loved everything about it except the entire system ("no minimums, that's stupid." "No art charges, I'm not doing that.").  We thanked them for their honesty and love of Big Frog.  Thanks, but no thanks.
• The "I really don't like people" Candidate:   This person was smart, earnest and loved Big Frog.  However, as the day progressed, the following was revealed...  "I really dislike young adults" (Big Frog's primary workforce),  "I really hate managing employees" (we only have two or three, but still), and in fact I'm just not fond of people (um, our whole customer base).  We recommended he look into a home-based business and forget Big Frog.  Duh.
• And finally, my personal favorite, The Tax Evader:  This candidate arrived in our office and within an hour proudly declared that he had not filed his taxes in over 5 years.  Needless to say, you could hear a pin drop after that assertion.  We figured the chance of seeing a royalty payment from that owner would be slim to none - "Don't let the door hit you..."

Everyone runs their DDays differently.  As a custom t-shirt franchise, ours are pretty casual - "t-shirts and shorts are acceptable attire".   Many of them visit us already wearing a Big Frog t-shirt (50 points!).   We have a nice lunch on Main Street and spend the whole day talking about Big Frog, answering questions, and getting comfortable that we're a good fit and they can be successful in a Big Frog store.

"Yes, yes", you say.  "I'm in franchising.  I get this." Or, "I'm not in franchising, but this is common sense."  We all get the theory behind the discovery day, but when you have less than 30 franchise units out there our objectivity slacks a bit.  The real question all emerging franchisors have to ask themselves...  do I have the nerve to turn away any candidate?

Here's an insight into our thought process,  "That franchise fee check is looking pretty good.  I could maybe pay myself this month.  And gosh, they seem awfully nice and I'm sure they would try hard."   Yep, it's tough to say no... most of the time.  But, I thought you might enjoy hearing about those three candidates where we had no problem saying no.

 "TripAdvisor" Side bar:  If you haven’t visited Main Street, Dunedin, you really should.  There are amazing restaurants on every block and cute curio shops.  If you need any recommendations, drop me an email.  Casa Tina's is a must, and no it's not named after me, but for as many times as I eat there, I may start telling people that.