Diverse News 2008®

NEWS FEEDS
Veterans Heavily Recruited as Franchisees
    Memorial Day, a day of giving thanks to veterans, also viewed as an
 opportunity to showcase the business skills veterans learn in the military

    PITTSBURGH, May 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The military taught them how to lead
teams, perform under pressure and execute a plan. These skills happen to be
the same critical ingredients for owning and running a franchise.

    "Veterans are trained for franchise ownership from day one in the
military," emphasizes Chris Hale, President of NaVOBA, the National
Veteran-Owned Business Association, http://www.navoba.com. "At age 25 in
the Navy, I was running a 90-person department and working over 70 hours a
week, and that is typical in the military. Not many civilians are given
that level of responsibility ever, let alone at such a young age. And you
certainly learned how to execute a plan. Failing to do so could have grave
consequences."

    Unlike starting a business from scratch, with a franchise, you don't
need an MBA, a business plan, a killer idea or a boatload of money.
"Franchises are proven business models that come with guidance, training
and support," said Matthew Shay, President and CEO of the International
Franchise Association (IFA), which promotes veteran small-business
ownership through its Veterans Transition Franchise Initiative, known as
"VetFran." The program is a voluntary effort by more than 325 franchise
systems which offer financial incentives to veterans. Details of the
program can be found at IFA's Web site http://www.franchise.org under
"VetFran Directory." To date, the program has enabled more than 1,000
veterans to acquire franchises.

    To assist franchises in recruiting veterans, military media concern
Victory Media has recently launched a new initiative which includes
franchise advertising packages, or FAPs, and
http://www.militaryfranchising.com, a web portal which gathers leads from
the company's military magazines and Web sites, including Vetrepreneur
magazine, G.I. Jobs magazine (http://www.gijobs.net) and Military Spouse
magazine (http://www.milspouse.com).

    "We've always had a lot of franchises advertise with us to recruit
veterans," said Marcea Weiss, Victory Media's franchise ad sales director.
"But now with FAPs and a consolidated Web site, we maximize the franchise's
exposure with a full year of print and web advertising for one low cost."
In just over a week, eight franchises have already signed up for Victory
Media's FAPs, including The Dwyer Group, Juice It Up, ChemDry, Cruise One,
Little Caesars, MAC Tools, Rotobrush International and Rita's Italian Ice.

    "We selected the FAP program because of Victory Media's tremendous
reach into the veteran franchisee market," said Mark Mele, Vice President
of Franchising for Rita's Italian Ice. "We realize that we must commit to
long term brand-building within the veteran market to be successful.
Veterans are a tight-knit group and we want them to know that Rita's is
'military-friendly.'"

    Financially, the SBA has now made it easier for veterans and their
families to borrow the start-up capital needed to get into a franchise. The
SBA's Patriot Express Loan program enables veterans and their spouses to
take advantage of loans up to $500,000 which qualify for the SBA's maximum
loan guaranty of up to 85 percent.
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