Franchise Printers -- Some Franchise Players

AlphaGraphics differs from most models here in that it does not compete in the retail environment. As for M&A growth, the company encourages franchisees to pursue local competitors as a growth strategy.

No Growing Pains

"For a numbers of years, we concentrated on our franchisees' unit economics, so we didn't want to grow too far too fast without ensuring that our franchisees were all profitable," Gerson says. "We've undertaken key initiatives for growth—when you look at franchise print reports, we're about a quarter million ahead of our next closest competitor on a per store average basis, and about twice the quick printer franchise revenue norms. And that's not by chance. That's what we did while other people were working on growth and then experienced unit attrition.