Speech at Multi-Unit Franchise Conference – Las Vegas 2026

Michael H. Seid, Managing Director, MSA Worldwide

I want to start with a story about Dave Thomas.

For those who don’t know — and I suspect everyone in this room does — Dave Thomas was the founder of Wendy’s, one of the most recognizable franchisors in history, and my co-author for my first book, Franchising for Dummies.

Dave was one of the wisest, most plainspoken people I’ve ever sat across a table from. He had this gift for cutting through complexity and getting to the truth of a thing, usually in about twelve words or fewer. He was also amazingly respectful to the people he worked with, and if he liked and respected you, you got a nickname. Mine was Hot Shot.

We were talking one afternoon and I asked him what his biggest mistake was. Dave leaned back in his chair and said something I have never forgotten — just two words — United Kingdom. Not his biggest international mistake. His biggest mistake. Full stop.

Here was one of the most successful franchisors in American history — a man who had built thousands of locations, who competed against the giants of McDonald’s, Burger King, and Burger Chef, who made the square hamburger business an art form, who had become genuinely iconic — and he was telling me that the country that speaks our language, watches our television, reads our books, and shares centuries of cultural and legal heritage with us was the place where he got it most wrong.

I asked him why.

And Dave said — “Because I thought I understood it. That was the problem.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the entire lesson of international franchising, wrapped up in one sentence by a man who learned it the expensive way.

The markets that look most like yours are precisely the ones that will ambush you, because familiarity breeds not contempt — it breeds assumptions. And in international franchising, assumptions are the most expensive thing you can pack in your suitcase.

Wendy’s first UK push largely failed. Not because the product wasn’t good. Not because the British don’t eat hamburgers. It failed because Wendy’s arrived assuming the market would welcome a British-inflected version of itself. But the Brits wanted Wendy’s. They didn’t want some random burger shop with a British accent.

Dave Thomas’s lesson is essential: the power of a brand rests in its culture, whether you are expanding at home or going overseas. Making changes to it comes with real and sometimes irreversible risks.

Let’s talk about why brands go global in the first place.

Motivation matters, because the reason you go international shapes everything about whether you succeed.

My long term partner, Kay Ainsley, who will speak later this morning, will tell you that international expansion will not solve your problems at home and instead, it will likely make them worse. She will also remind you that going international will take longer than you expect and cost more than you expect and she will emphasize that the most critical decision a franchisor makes is who they select as their franchisee. Kay is speaking from experence that only can come from the trenches of having lived it.

The legitimate reasons to expand internationally are real. Your domestic market is saturated, or you can see saturation coming. If you’ve built significant density and the white space is narrowing, international markets represent genuine runway.

Consumer demand will often pull you overseas — in a world where people travel and follow brands on social media, consumers in foreign markets sometimes already want what you sell before you’ve opened a single location. Competition is also a strong motivation. You may not want to be “first in the market” but you also don’t want to be last and have to fight for market share in an established market. I have been an adjunct professor  at The Ohio State Univeristy — yes, we are the world’s champion in football, and Michigan is not  — and when my international students go home on break, they talk up American brands. There’s a lesson in being genuinely warm to people with foreign accents. You never know.

There is also the strategic investor — the overseas operator who already owns multiple locations and multiple brands in their home markets. They have a track record you can actually evaluate. That is a serious conversation worth having.

And then there are the other reasons. Those of us who have done this for a while will smile and grimace at the same time.

There is the someone-from-Dubai-called reason. They saw you at a trade show, they sent an email full of exclamation points explaining how your concept will be a “game-changer” in their market. They have money but no experience managing a brand. My best advice: calm down. You have likely just found a new pen pal — but not a franchise investor.

There is also the ego reason — the desire to tell someone at the IFA that your brand now operates in seventeen countries. Seventeen countries sounds impressive right up until three of them are struggles and you’re explaining to your board why you’re spending more money supporting foreign markets than you’re earning from them.

And there is always — “it worked in San Francisco, why wouldn’t it work in Tokyo?” — the seductive, dangerous idea that cultural similarity equals market similarity. It does not.

Before you ask where you should expand, you must first ask whether you should expand. Whether your system is documented, transferable, and replicable by people who did not learn it by sitting next to you for fifteen years. Whether you — not the international franchisee — have the capital to fund your side of this equation. International expansion consumes capital before it generates it. And you need management capacity dedicated exclusively to international — not your domestic VP of Operations managing it on the side while putting out fires in the Midwest. Take a careful breath. Make an honest evaluation of your readiness. This does not have to be a bumpy ride if you plan it right.

Let’s talk about structure.

There are three primary options: master franchising, multi-unit development, and joint ventures — four if you include direct single-unit growth. Sophisticated franchisors often blend them. The structure should always serve the strategy. Never let the structure become the strategy.

Area development grants a franchisee the right to open multiple units on a development schedule — they operate the units themselves, a direct relationship with you, no sub-franchising. With today’s technology — real-time POS data, remote training platforms, video auditing — the tools that once made managing international franchisees from a distance feel impossible are now table stakes. I often question why people reach for something less direct when it isn’t necessary.

Joint ventures mean you co-invest alongside a partner — sharing ownership, governance, financial exposure, risk and returns. McDonald’s used this brilliantly in several markets. It is particularly effective when the local partner brings real estate, regulatory relationships, or distribution infrastructure that would take years to replicate. Joint ventures require alignment on the front end. What happens when partners disagree about expansion pace? Capital calls? Brand standards? Answer those questions before they become disputes. Getting into a relationship is easy. Exiting one gracefully is hard.

And then there is master franchising.

Master franchising has been the dominant structure in international expansion for decades, and it deserves an honest assessment the industry hasn’t always been willing to give it. The theory is elegant — one well-capitalized, well-connected local franchisee, rights to an entire country or region, they recruit sub-franchisees, provide boots on the ground local support, collect royalties, share a portion with you. It sounds almost passive. The reality is considerably messier. I just spent three days as an expert in an international arbitration between a master franchisee and a well-known franchisor. When things go wrong — trust me — they get expensive to fix.

If I asked this room to list brands that have scaled successfully inside the United States using a master franchise approach, you would be surprised how short that list is. Jan-Pro and Jani-King in commercial cleaning and Kumon come quickly to mind. Beyond that the success stories get thin quickly. I can probably name six. I don’t think I can name ten.

Do I think master franchising is on its way out? In many markets, yes — and for good reason. The original argument was that you couldn’t manage franchisees in foreign markets from a distance. In a world of real-time data and digital communication, that argument is weaker than it was twenty years ago. The best international franchisors are increasingly managing area development relationships directly or structuring joint ventures that give them equity and genuine control.

The structure is not dead. But if you are reflexively defaulting to master franchising because it is what international franchising has always looked like — or because your franchise broker is comfortable selling it — ask honestly whether that habit is serving your brand or merely your short-term fee income. And if you are entering the United States, ask yourself: why are so few U.S. franchisors using it domestically?

Now let me tell you some stories, because stories are what stay with people.

But be careful — if you are bringing a halal brand to the United States, success in Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest Muslim population in the country, tells you very little about whether the brand will carry to a market that simply wants a great-tasting product. The same reason opening near Times Square is usually a mistake — the traffic count cannot be duplicated anywhere else on the planet, and the data it gives you is almost useless.

The Body Shop is a success story and a failure story simultaneously. When it entered the US in the 1980s it was genuinely ahead of its time — ethical sourcing, cruelty-free beauty, environmental consciousness. It found a loyal consumer base and built real scale. Then it filed for US bankruptcy in 2024 and closed all its American locations. What happened? The brand taught the market its own language — and was then out-spoken in that language by newer, fresher, better-capitalized competitors. Sephora, Ulta, and dozens of direct-to-consumer brands now lead with ethical sourcing as a baseline expectation, not a differentiator. Mall traffic collapsed. Ownership changed hands multiple times, hollowing out the authentic identity that had made the brand meaningful. Company-owned locations were prioritized for inventory while the franchisee base ran with gaps and out-of-stocks. First-mover advantage has an expiration date. Incumbent inertia will kill your brand. I don’t care what market you are in.

Nestlé Toll House Café — and I tell you this story knowing it is not a comfortable one, because it is a cautionary tale about what happens when the world’s largest food company decides it would rather be anywhere else than in a franchise relationship it was not prepared to support. Nestlé entered a master franchise agreement to operate Toll House Café — a bakery-café built around the iconic Toll House cookie brand. It seemed almost self-evidently compelling. What followed was neither swift nor simple. Without supervision, the master franchisee introduced a full savory line wrapped in Nestlé cups and packaging. In markets where Nestlé lacked distribution, they smuggled product across international borders. And my personal favorite — when I visited one location, the franchisee was proudly selling Hershey chocolate bars under the Nestlé sign.

Nestlé ultimately determined it wanted out. But exiting a master franchise agreement is not a decision you simply make and execute. Nestlé had to litigate its way out. I was Nestlé’s litigation expert. The process was expensive, contentious, and reputationally damaging for a company that had entered the relationship without reckoning with what franchise commitments actually require. The decision to franchise is not the hard part. The hard part is everything that comes after.

Let me bring these stories together around to what matters most.

Franchisee selection is the entire game. A single bad franchisee in your home market is unfortunate but manageable. A bad area developer or master franchisee in international franchising affects an entire country and your brand. The reputational cost is amplified in a world where what happens in one market immediately impacts others. Do not rush. Look for demonstrated operational capability, organizational depth — not just a charismatic franchisee — shared values, and evidence of long-term thinking. Visit their operations. Ask their existing business associates how they behave when things go wrong. Because things will go wrong.

Work with great lawyers and knowledgeable advisors. The law is not global. Some jurisdictions have relationship laws that constrain your ability to terminate or enforce brand standards regardless of what your franchise agreement says. Intellectual property protection varies from fully enforceable to effectively decorative.

For inbound expansion to the United States — the stability of the FTC Rule and state registration requirements is, frankly, a gift. The United States may be one of the easiest countries in the world to franchise in, even if it is a fiercely competitive retail market to sustain in. Do not attempt entry without experienced US legal and business advisors. And third-party franchise brokers and franchise sales organizations are never a source for advice and generally will not be your best way to enter the US market and sustain your franchise program.

For outbound expansion from the US — engage local counsel in each target market before you structure any agreements. Your American franchise attorneys may be excellent, but they cannot substitute for on-the-ground expertise in Brazilian franchise law, Chinese IP registration, or Middle Eastern agency law that may give your master franchisee statutory rights that override your contract. Let your domestic advisors serve as your quarterback — but localized expertise is not optional.

Have a regional growth plan before you leave your shores — one that allows you to support and sustain a system, not just open a single market and hope for the best.

And on brand adaptation versus brand protection — your brand has value precisely because it is consistent. Unconstrained modification erodes the value of your most important asset. And yet the franchisor who insists that what works in Akron, Ohio will work unchanged in Auckland or Abu Dhabi is demonstrating not brand integrity, but brand arrogance — and it fails. Define what is sacred and what is flexible, in writing, before your franchisee opens their first location. Core brand elements are sacred. The wrapper, the uniforms, the colors in the location — negotiable. Protect the core ferociously. Remain genuinely open about everything else.

The conversation that still concerns me most is the one where someone unrolls a world map on the conference table and starts pointing at countries without a plan — just enthusiasm and a sense that the world is waiting.

Dave Thomas was right. The most dangerous market is the one you think you understand. Your vacation in London did not make you an expert on England any more than your visit to the emergency room gave you the ability to do brain surgery.

But here is what I also know: international franchising is a genuine and extraordinary opportunity. Some of the world’s most recognized and valuable brands were built through exactly the strategies we have discussed today. Done well — with preparation, humility, the right franchisees, and the right infrastructure — it creates growth, diversification, resilience, and brand equity that transcends borders and outlasts all of us.

The franchisors who go international before they are ready don’t just fail internationally. They come home damaged — sometimes in ways that threaten the domestic business they spent decades building.

The franchisors who go when they are genuinely ready — who select the right franchisees, build the right structures, and respect the market they are entering — they build something remarkable.

Last piece of advice — Roll up the map. Do the hard work first. Work with experts who have done this before, and make certain that you have the necessary capital to execute it properly. And only then — do you go global.

Thank you.