You're staring at a full pipeline and want to be intentional about build-out — what should you actually be prepared for?

Katherine LeBlanc and James Vitrano sit down with Charlie Guzzetta, founding partner of Depot and former President & Chief Development Officer of BurgerFi (9 to 135 locations and public on the NASDAQ). Charlie now builds and designs kitchens for some of the hottest restaurant brands around, and he lays out how to scale without blowing your budget or your brand: why you should design a business instead of a restaurant, the three Ps of build-out (pre-planning, prototypes, post-mortem), how a "family of prototypes" keeps you flexible, and where restaurant tech is finally getting affordable for emerging brands.

A practical playbook for any franchisor heading into a growth phase.

About the hosts: Katherine LeBlanc and James Vitrano have a combined 40+ years in franchising — across marketing, operations, legal, and franchise development. Katherine is the founder of Apollo CMO, helping franchise brands grow.

Go deeper:
 🌐 apollocmo.com | ▶️ @KatherineLeBlanc_Franchise on YouTube | 🔗 linkedin.com/in/katherineleblanc | 📩 [email protected]

You're ready to grow your franchise — so where do you actually start? In this episode of Dear Frannie, Katherine LeBlanc and James Vitrano tackle the question every emerging franchisor is asking: where do I start my franchise development process, especially when budgets are tight?

Their answer is the one most brands skip: start inside your own four walls. Before you spend a dollar on external lead generation, your fans, employees, and customers are your warmest and most likely franchisees. Katherine and James unpack why "marketing is momentum," why cheap external leads are often the most expensive path, why passive income is a dangerous sales pitch, and why growing slow is a feature, not a failure.

Whether you're an emerging brand launching franchising or a seasoned operator over-indexed on external spend, this episode will change where you put your next dollar.

Katherine LeBlanc is a franchise growth and marketing advisor and founder of Apollo CMO, helping brands build franchise sales programs that convert. Reach her at [email protected].

About the hosts: Katherine LeBlanc and James Vitrano have spent a combined 40+ years in the trenches of franchising — across marketing, operations, legal, and franchise development. They've sat in the rooms where the hard calls get made, and they share what they've seen work and what they've watched blow up.

🌐 apollocmo.com
 ▶️ @KatherineLeBlanc_Franchise on YouTube
 🔗 linkedin.com/in/katherineleblanc
 📩 [email protected]

Even the most experienced franchise leaders get stuck on this one: you have owners who could scale — they have the territory, the model, the support — and they still won't move. In this episode, Katherine and James sit down with Sean Fitzgerald, President of TruBlue Home Service Ally, to dig into exactly that problem.

Sean joined TruBlue when they had 20 locations. They're now at 120+ territories. He's not guessing about the messy middle — he's in it. They cover franchisee selection (hint: passion and team-building matter more than financials), the owner-operator ceiling that quietly kills growth, and what TruBlue built to address it: a dedicated scaling coach, a prescriptive revenue roadmap, and a required BDR role baked into the system.

The networking vs. LSM debate is also one for the books — and worth your full attention whether you're a franchisor or a franchisee.

Got a question you're wrestling with? We want to hear it.
📩 [email protected]
🌐 apollocmo.com
🔗 linkedin.com/in/katherineleblanc
▶️ Watch on YouTube: @KatherineLeBlanc_Franchise

In this episode, Katherine LeBlanc sits down with Madelaine Reis, Head of Marketing at Biscuit Belly, to unpack what a repeatable grand opening playbook looks like in practice. Biscuit Belly's last two openings both crossed $50,000 in revenue in week one — and Madelaine built their entire program from a blank PowerPoint starting at store number four.

They talk through the full funnel: PR, paid media, influencers, food drops, friends-and-family events, and loyalty program onboarding. They cover how to sequence it all when your opening date keeps moving, why you should never open cold, and what it costs franchisors when ops waits too long to loop in marketing.

Whether you're opening your next location or building a grand opening program for the first time, this episode gives you a real-world look at what actually moves the needle.

Have a question you're wrestling with? Submit it at apollocmo.com or reach us at [email protected].

Find Dear Frannie on YouTube @KatherineLeBlanc_Franchise and connect with Katherine at linkedin.com/in/katherineleblanc.

What should you actually expect your franchisees to own — and what's yours to carry?

In this episode, Katherine and James dig into the expectation gap that creates more friction in franchise systems than almost anything else. They start with a live observation from IFE — the International Franchise Expo — and a question Katherine's been sitting with: when does a hyper-niche concept become too simple to sustain? And how do you build a moat around an offering before the fad fades?

Then the Dear Frannie question: What should I expect my franchisees to own?

They break down:

• Why franchisors hesitate to tell franchisees "this is your business — run it"
• The "you own the business, we own the brand" framework and what it actually means in practice
• The difference between passion-play buyers and hard-industry operators — and why expectations have to be set differently
• What franchisee complaints about marketing are usually really about
• How to define your role in their profitability so both sides know where the line is

Katherine LeBlanc and James Vitrano have a combined 40+ years across franchise marketing, operations, legal, and development. They've been in the room where hard decisions get made — and they're not shy about sharing what they've seen.

📩 Got a question you're wrestling with? Submit it at apollocmo.com or reach Katherine directly at [email protected]

🌐 apollocmo.com | 🔗 linkedin.com/in/katherineleblanc | ▶️ @MyPodcastHost on YouTube

You've been selling franchises yourself — between meetings, on instinct, whenever you have time. But is that actually a process? Katherine and James take a listener's question about building a franchise development function and pull it back to the question most franchisors skip: do you have a franchisable concept in the first place?

They cover the red flags, the real cost of creating demand, what to build first, and why the long-term view is non-negotiable.

About the Hosts
 Katherine LeBlanc and James Vitrano have spent a combined 40+ years in the trenches of franchising — across marketing, operations, legal, and franchise development — working with brands at every stage of growth. They've sat in the rooms where the hard calls get made, and they're not shy about sharing what they've seen work and what they've watched blow up. 

Want to go deeper?

🌐 apollocmo.com
 ▶️ @MyPodcastHost on YouTube
 🔗 linkedin.com/in/katherineleblanc
 📩 [email protected]

You hired people to do marketing. Things are getting posted, flyers are getting made, someone's running social. But sales aren't moving — and you honestly don't know if your team is the problem or if you are.

In this episode, Katherine and James get into what franchisors actually get wrong when they build a junior marketing team without a senior leader in place. Katherine has been in the marketing seat long enough to know how this plays out — and James has been the frustrated operator on the other side of it.

They cover what coordinator-level marketers should actually own, how to measure their work without expecting the wrong things, and what it looks like when you've genuinely outgrown the setup you have.

Also in this episode: approved vendor programs — required list or franchisee's call?

Produced by My Podcast Host — the podcast platform built for franchising. Because the best franchise knowledge shouldn't stay behind closed doors.

New episodes twice a month.

Franchisees are asking about vendor rebates - and you don't have a clean answer. That's the question at the center of this episode, and Katherine and James don't let it off easy.

They talk through what franchisees are really asking when they bring rebates up and how to think about rebate dollars in a way that serves the system - not just the P&L. Plus: why rebate complaints are almost never actually about rebates.

Candid, practical, and a little spicy. Just like the best franchise advice should be.

🎙️ Produced by My Podcast Host - the podcast platform built for franchising.

You've added executives. But are they moving the business forward - or just occupying a lane?

Katherine and James get honest about what founders often get wrong when hiring their first executive team, why self-awareness is the first step in fixing it, and how to know when it's time to make a change. They also debate whether you should hire for the experience you don't have yet or promote the people who already know your system.

Real talk. No panels. No fluff. Just the clarity you wish you had sooner.

🎙️ Produced by My Podcast Host — the podcast platform built for franchising.

The ops manual is the backbone of your franchise system. So why does almost no one treat it that way?

In this episode of Dear Frannie, Katherine and James make the case that neglecting your operations manual isn't a paperwork problem — it's a leadership problem. If your franchisees can't run your brand without you in the room, the ops manual is why.

They open with a This or That: Should you enforce brand standards through authority and consequences — or drive compliance through proof, performance, and peer examples? The conversation gets real fast, including what it actually means when you've already reached the default letter stage.

Then the Dear Frannie question: "Our ops manual keeps getting bigger, but it's harder to use, not easier. What actually needs to live in an ops manual — and what shouldn't — if it's supposed to help franchisees run better businesses?"

What you'll hear in this episode:

• Why the ops manual is the only document a franchisor can unilaterally update — and why that makes it the most powerful tool you're probably underusing
• What three things every ops manual must anchor: brand execution, operational standards, and marketing parameters
• Why not having a clear owner of the ops manual is one of the most expensive mistakes in franchising
• How hours of operation and holiday schedules become legal and brand landmines when they're not documented
• The Big R vs. Little R review rhythm that keeps your manual current without making it a burden
• What happens when a franchisee says "you never told me" — and you can't prove that you did

The ops manual is not a compliance document. It is the codified proof that what you built is replicable. Treat it accordingly.

Dear Frannie is the franchise advice column for leaders navigating growth, change, and the messy middle of scale.

🎙️ Produced by My Podcast Host — the podcast platform built for franchising. Because franchise expertise shouldn't live behind conference doors.

🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode.