How did the new accounting systems impact franchisees?
This was a program franchisees could use to budget their own stores, so they were excited about that. My ability to say, “Look, there’s cash in the bank, there’s inventory, our stores are performing profitably,” was key to having other franchisees buy into our system. Was the intention of the company all along to become a big company–to move away from its entrepreneurial roots? I’m not sure when if that was [the founders’] intention when they started, but all along the way, we’ve stopped and said, “Are these the right steps to take? Do we want to get bigger?” and we’ve always thought the opportunity was too great to ignore. What was the relationship like between the corporate office and franchisees back then? When I got here, there was some concern over what impact I would have on the system. We started up bimonthly conference calls with our franchisees, we did a traveling meeting to talk with the franchisees. We hired a head of operations and really wanted to talk about the potential
