Archive for Author 'John Santiago', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

Are We Profit Partners Only?

  As 7-Eleven franchisees, we love our brand. Our stores allow us to make a good living while providing friendly services to our customers and building strong ties with our communities. But times are changing. Unlike in the past, when our only worry was a competing c-store, these days we’re being bombarded with additional competition. […]

Keeping Up With Rising Operational Costs

  A number of years ago, our franchisor’s focus was on obtaining the lowest cost of goods for our stores. Any company with a recommended product delivered a lower cost, and SEI would renegotiate to obtain the lowest possible price in the form of billbacks. This process helped generate sales and profits for both franchisees […]

Conflicts Of Interest

  Many of us are familiar generally with the concept of a conflict of interest, but seldom is that term defined in a formal sense. Essentially, a conflict of interest exists where the impartiality of a party is undermined by simultaneous duties to other parties that have differing interests. Many franchise systems give franchisors the […]

BT Demand Chain Issues

  When 7-Eleven went about selling the BT program as a way to “simplify processes” at the store level, it sounded promising and maybe even too good to be true. Franchisees went along with our business partner on this endeavor, because franchisee store sales performance is directly impacted by how efficiently the demand chain works. […]

First Time For The New Franchisee Merchandising Advisory Council

  The new Franchisee Merchandising Advisory Council met for the first time in Dallas on Friday June 16, 2017. This committee was formed based on a request made at the last CEO Roundtable to provide franchisees with more opportunities for input and ideas on merchandising topics. Franchisees in attendance included: Nick Bhullar, Vice Chairman, NCASEF […]

Can We Learn From “The Founder?”

  The recent movie “The Founder” is based on the story of how Ray Kroc grew the McDonald’s brand through franchising. Several scenes in the movie peaked my interest as being eminently relatable to 7-Eleven and even prompted me to look for more McDonald’s comparisons to our system. The first scene revolves around the design […]

Territory Rights And Encroachment

  SEI has stated and demonstrated it is on a growth path in Canada and the United States by continuing to make store acquisitions that add to overall store totals. The company is presently near its goal of 10,000 locations in North America with its recent purchase of 1,108 Sunoco c-stores (with gas), which brings […]

What Business Is Your Franchisor In?

  During my tenure as the General Counsel of the National Coalition, I have often wondered how best to characterize our franchisor. Is 7-Eleven, Inc. a convenience store retailer and franchisor? A gasoline provider? A logistics and supply company? An accounting and bookkeeping company? Increasingly, the answer seems to be that SEI is well on […]

The Three-Legged Stool

  Convenience store sales are the sum of the efforts of the people involved, and I often compare it to a three-legged stool composed of 7-Eleven, Inc., vendor manufacturers or service people, and franchisees. The objective of the stool is to “sell more stuff,” but like the stool, we need each leg in the relationship […]

Vixxo Maintenance Price Increase—The Update

  Roughly two years ago, National Coalition Board members and officers held a maintenance contract meeting with SEI wherein Joe DePinto decided to put the planned maintenance fee increase on hold mainly because franchisees were not receiving good service from FM Facility Maintenance, which is now Vixxo. At the time, SEI agreed to work with […]