.png "BrightStar Care"){kind=logo}
The following is an excerpt from an article originally published in the October 2026 issue of Franchising Magazine USA.
In a landscape crowded with Al tools and virtual everything, these franchise executives are finding that some of the industry’s oldest playbooks still deliver the best results.
Franchising has never been more technologically advanced, with Al-powered site selection, virtual tours, and algorithm-driven lead scoring reshaping how brands find and evaluate candidates.
However, alongside these advances, we’re seeing some of the most effective growth tactics from the past were never broken.
From in-person meetings to old-school relationship building, a handful of franchise leaders are proving that “old school” and “high performing” aren’t mutually exclusive.
Here, five executives across different sectors of franchising share the 90s-era strategies and why they’re driving results in 2026.
Leading With the Why — Chris Connolly, Vice President, Franchise Sales at BrightStar Care
Ask almost any BrightStar Care franchisee why they got into this, and you will hear a name. A mother who needed care no one could quite deliver. A husband who wanted to stay home instead of moving to a facility. A neighbor who navigated a diagnosis with no one in their corner. Nearly everyone who joins us has been touched personally by the exact need our locations exist to meet.
That is not a coincidence, and it is not new. In the 90s, long before "purpose" became a line in a pitch deck, people started businesses because something in their own life demanded it. Conviction came first and the business plan followed. Somewhere along the way, franchise recruiting drifted toward lead scores and conversion rates, and that personal spark got treated as a nice-to-have rather than the whole point.
We treat it as the whole point. When we evaluate a candidate, the why matters as much as the balance sheet, because it is what sustains an owner when the work gets hard. Care is demanding. What carries a franchisee through the difficult days is remembering the person who made them want to do this in the first place.
The truth underneath all of it is simple. The need for care touches everyone. It always has, and it always will. Every one of us will either need it or love someone who does. Franchisees who understand that do not just build rewarding businesses. They build something their communities lean on, and they mentor the next owners to do the same. That is the tactic worth carrying forward from the 90s and well beyond.
What ties these five approaches goes far beyond nostalgia — it's a recognition that growth built on genuine relationships tends to outlast growth built on convenience alone. As franchising becomes more digital and more data-driven, the brands willing to slow down and show up in genuine ways are finding that's exactly what sets them apart. Sometimes the most forward-thinking move is remembering what worked in the first place.
