Execute the deal, collect funds, hand the new owner off to onboarding. Then run a retro and graduate from Flight Plan.
Working draft · Co-build with Clay
We live here this weekStage 4 of 5 · Signed / Handoff
Signed / Handoff
"Execute the deal, collect funds, and hand the franchisee off to onboarding."
Franchise agreement fully executed by all parties
Initial franchise fee collected and confirmed by finance
Franchisee profile created in CRM / FranConnect
Sales handoff memo completed
Onboarding kickoff scheduled
Handoff accepted by onboarding team
Week 4 anchor: Signing is the punctuation mark — but the real test is the handoff. The new owner only feels Mainstream as one team if the baton moves cleanly from sales (Katie) to operations. By Friday: at least one lead from the Katie-led cycle has crossed the line, finance has confirmed the fee, and the onboarding team has accepted the handoff in writing.
What "Done with Week 4" Looks Like
By Friday of Week 4:
At least one signed deal from the Katie-led intake-to-close cycle, with the agreement fully executed and the franchise fee collected.
Handoff to onboarding complete for that first deal — sales handoff memo filed, onboarding kickoff scheduled, handoff accepted.
Dead Lead / Nurture buckets reviewed — leads that didn’t make it to Signed are routed correctly so nothing falls through the cracks.
30-day Flight Plan retrospective — three questions: what worked, what didn’t, what changes for next month.
Graduated from Flight Plan — Katie running the full cycle solo on new leads from Week 5 onward.
Looking Ahead
FranServe partnership deployment is around the corner
Brand Byte development — FranDev to develop, role play, then record the Brand Byte that officially launches the FranServe partnership. This week, Clay’s goal is to have the Brand Byte slide deck ready for our review, then record next week at the latest.
Handoff plan — After onboarding is fully complete and MB is live on FranServe, Clay will hand the partnership over to Katie and begin work on the next major broker partnership (rinse and repeat).
What the FranServe partnership looks like for Katie — fielding broker territory requests, scheduling and completing intro calls with new leads/brokers, speaking on virtual town halls when the opportunity presents itself, and proactively schmoozing top brokers (especially those with the strongest women-oriented lead flows).
Project Update Done
FDD renewal is complete — filing today
The 2026 FDD renewal is fully drafted, reviewed, and ready. Goes in today. The new FDD will be live shortly — we’ll postpone the FDD renewal role play until the new FDD is live, then run through it together.
Project Update Live
Franchise site — Meet The Owners section is live
The franchise hub now has a dedicated Meet The Owners section showcasing owner stories tied to their state landing pages. Each card features the owner(s), their location, and a "Read story →" link that deep-links into the Inside spotlight on their state page.
5 state landing pages live today — Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, and Ohio. The plan is to have an owner in every state listed in this section and mapped to their state landing page. As we ship the remaining state pages (Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania next), each one gets a featured owner card on the hub.
Google Ads campaign launched today. Starting with a small budget while we A/B test various keywords, state targeting, ad copy, and landing page combinations. When one configuration starts showing strong success, we pour gasoline all over that sucker.
Watch volume + quality together. Report any anomalies in real time — bad clicks are as important to flag as good leads. The whole point of running small now is to learn fast.
We’re actively pursuing several CRM platforms, with 2 more being tested this week. Aiming for a final decision and onboarding start next week.
The focus on the new CRM is a system that does less things very well. Think simple, but effective. Opposite of Salesforce. Reliable. All the core features we want and need in a clean, fast format. Once we lock the choice, Katie gets early access for parallel testing against the current FranConnect setup so the migration is real-data informed, not theoretical.
FranDev Whiteboard
5–10 min discussion: turning featured owners into growth partners
Where things stand: Every state page goes live within the month, each with a franchise spotlight — the featured owner’s story, three store photos (inside, outside, team), and a “shop their store” CTA.
What’s next (and where I need your input): I want to meet with the featured owners and build their state with them using a hub-and-spoke model.
How it would work:
Their store becomes the local anchor / proof of concept (e.g., Janesville for Wisconsin).
Prospects in that state visit their store and meet with them — almost a local discovery day.
In exchange, they promote the franchise opportunity to their customers: receipts, in-store signage, monthly social, etc.
We build an incentive structure for the owners who partner with us on this.
Goal: turn our strongest owners into growth partners and drive a wave of new locations off the back of it.
Upcoming Punch List
What’s queued next
Retargeting campaigns — Meta + Google ads to bring back warm prospects who hit the funnel but didn’t convert.
Customer list outreach campaigns — existing Mainstream customers are some of our highest-intent franchise prospects. They already love the brand — now we tell them they could own it.
Hub-and-spoke implementation — build the operational playbook from the Whiteboard above. Featured owner agreements, local discovery day structure, in-store collateral, incentive program.
Remaining state landing pages — Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania (in priority order from Cowork’s SEO + Ads research).
Ton more — we’ll build the full list out together as Katie graduates from Flight Plan into the rotation.