PGP: You’ve been in the franchise industry for nearly four decades. But what brought you to it?
Bryon Stephens: I didn’t know the word franchising until I started washing dishes at a Holiday Inn in 1980. I just wasn’t aware. Ted Hrysak, who owned the hotel, introduced me to the idea. I thought Holiday Inn was some big corporation, and that the corporation owned all the Holiday Inn hotels. But Ted explained to me that, no, individuals own these businesses. I could ultimately own a business like this. And that lit a passion in me.
Ted put everything he had into his business. He owned five Holiday Inn hotels that he’d built from the ground up – he had the means to live anywhere but he spent most of his time living in a little house across the street from one of his hotels. His drive made me want my own store, my own business. And as my career moved forward, I became interested in helping people realize their dream and get them into business through franchising. I always had a natural curiosity and a love of helping people. It was a natural fit.
PGP: How did all of this culminate in the launch of your own franchise growth company?
Bryon: Cam and I have been aligned as partners in franchise growth since the 1990s. I hired his marketing agency to handle franchise marketing while I was at Yorkshire Global Restaurants (which later became acquired by Tricon Global and renamed Yum! Brands). I brought Cam and his company with me through the transition to Yum! Brands and we worked together there for two years.
Then, when I moved over to Marco’s Pizza, I brought Cam with me again and he decided he wanted to buy in and get a seat at the table in Marco’s, so, we formalized our business partnership at Marco’s in 2006. Over the next decade, we created immense value and growth together within Marco’s.
It was around then we started to realize we could create this story for other brands. We were looking at the industry as a whole, watching these emerging, hot concepts getting awards and accolades and yet not going anywhere. In large part, it’s because people don’t know how to grow a hot concept when they have it. Cam and I know that we can. We can help them grow their brands. And we wanted to capitalize on some of those pivotal growth stories.
We’re unique in that we love the startup component of a brand. We love innovating and adapting and moving. Once brands get bigger, they get steadier and more bureaucratic. But we prefer the creation aspect of the success paradigm, digging our heels in and helping a small brand capitalize on their big potential.
PGP: Who have been some of your most important mentors throughout your life and career?
Bryon: Ted Hyrsak, who I mentioned earlier, was the first to see my potential and really light the passion in me.
Later, Sidney Feltenstein. He’s legendary. He’s an IFA Hall of Famer, multi-award-winner. He had a simple model for franchise growth: the idea that our success as a franchisor was directly tied to franchisee success, and that we should, therefore, focus our efforts on franchisee success. With him, there was no “Us vs. Them” mentality. He believed once a franchise agreement was signed, it should live in a drawer somewhere and never be looked at again. Success came instead from doing what was good for each store, doing what was good for each franchisee. He taught me that growth is a by-product of doing everything else right.
Also – I remember lamenting to my father about my job at the Holiday Inn. I was making less money than I had at my previous job and I just felt like washing dishes for lower pay was below me. And my dad said, “I thought I taught you better than that. There is no honor in what someone does for a living. Honor comes from how they do what they do for a living. So, I suggest you go be the best dishwasher they’ve ever seen and see where that takes you.”
My dad’s coaching in that simple moment led me to approach that job, and every job I had after that, as if it was the best job in America. I lived what my dad said. “Be the best you can possibly be at the role you’re in.” And with living that philosophy came promotions and advancement. I try still to be as good as I can be; I still strive to become better and better and better.