In sports, the franchise player is the one you can trust to lead the team to victory and uplift them during hard times.
In the business world, that’s what Tarji Carter is doing with her platform, The Franchise Player. The Franchise Player was created to increase franchise ownership and wealth across the African American community. Her goal is to provide a clear path to ownership for aspiring franchisees with brands that are committed to fostering inclusive and diverse environments.
What inspired you to create The Franchise Player?
When I started my career in franchising about 15 years ago, I quickly learned that there was a huge disparity in ownership from an ethnic standpoint. My love of culture and community led me to want to get information about franchising and the benefits of it into the hands of our community. So I’ve been working at this for a very long time, but [I’m] finally in a position where I can take everything that I’ve learned throughout these years and put it in a nice, neat package for others to learn from.
What should the Black community know about franchising?
Franchising is achievable for all of us and I think it’s just a matter of us getting out of our way. When I say that, I mean in terms of partnership. Most folks don’t want to partner with anyone, and they think it’s not a good idea to do so. In my experience working with other ethnic groups, that’s how they’ve built wealth. They trust one another, they find one or two individuals that they trust and whom they respect, and they pool their resources and they grow. They start with just one and then grow from there. I think most folks think that you need millions of dollars to own a franchise, and that may be the case for some brands, but there are thousands of different brands out there and almost 300 different industries, so there is a concept out there that could fit pretty much anyone whether individually or as an investment or partnership group.
Why are coaching and mentorship important when pursuing a franchising opportunity?
Franchising has been around for ages and it’s just catching on in our community, so going in with your eyes wide open and having a support system along the way is going to be extremely helpful in establishing success. There’s a lot to be done, starting with due diligence, checking out the brand, and understanding what they stand for and not just the product that they sell or the service they provide. How do they view diversity within the franchisee pool? What are some of the practices they have? Do they have any unconscious bias training, mandates, and things of that nature? I think it’s important that in addition to the support, we do our due diligence to ensure that we’re partnering with a brand that is truly committed to diversity, equity and inclusion.
