START YOUR YOUTH MOVEMENT

I’m a franchise consultant, and I was speaking recently with an executive at a major fast-food franchise. We stumbled onto the subject of franchisee recruitment and both agreed: It’s hard to recruit talented young franchisees because people under 40 generally don’t have much management experience.

But at the same time, we agreed that younger franchisees have a lot to offer. They have long careers ahead of them, for one. That’s time they can use to grow the franchise. Plus, they’re in tune with the trendy, spendy customers that most franchise systems want to attract.

Since the executive and I were in lockstep, I asked