Growing Up in the Franchise Business: What Three Generations Taught Me

People sometimes assume I always knew I would end up here. The truth is, when you grow up around franchising, you don’t think of it as the family business.

It’s just part of life. 

Some of my earliest memories are from franchise conventions, sitting in offices, listening to conversations I was probably too young to understand, and watching people my family genuinely cared about build their businesses. Our franchise owners were not just names in a report. They were people who came to our house, knew our family, and were building businesses to support their own. 

Looking back, I realize I was not just growing up around franchising. I was growing up around relationships. That is probably the biggest lesson three generations have taught me. Business has always been about people first. 

My grandfather Roy: people will follow someone they trust

When people ask me about my grandfather Roy, the first thing that comes to mind is not a business lesson. It is how he treated people. 

My grandfather was the ultimate people person. I never knew anyone who disliked him. When he walked into a room, he was quiet, but everyone loved him. He would walk around and make friends with anyone. I watched him tell someone they were not doing a good job, and that person loved him even more for it afterward. I have never seen anything quite like it. 

The story of how he got started is one I think about a lot. He was working at Parents Magazine, which was a Time Life company, when it got acquired. The new owner came into his office and offered him a promotion with one condition: he had to fire his three closest friends at the company which wasn’t something he wasn’t going to do. 

Instead, he called a meeting with all three of them and laid it out. When I tell this guy no I won’t fire you , he is going to fire me. Then he is going to promote one of you and ask you to fire the other two. So why don’t the four of us leave together and start something? I have no idea what it will be. I cannot pay you anything. Are you in? 

They all said yes. 

That is how Minuteman Press started. They pooled their money, had no real plan, and they were all in because they trusted him. Wherever he was going, they were going with him.

 I’ve thought about that story a lot. Leadership is not about titles. It is about earning enough trust that people are willing to take the journey with you.

 If I could ask him anything now, it would probably be about some of the operational and marketing decisions he let go, the things he did not focus on because relationships were where his energy lived. I understand that instinct completely. But I also understand now, in a way I could not as a kid, what gets left on the table when you lead entirely from that place.

 “Wherever he was going, they were going with him. That is the kind of trust he built.” 

My father Ray: tell me I can’t

My dad and I are different in a lot of ways. Anyone who knows us would quickly agree, but one thing I’ve always admired about him is this: tell him something is not going to work, that he cannot do it, that he is going to fail, and he is going to show you exactly why you were wrong. He will outwork you. He will push past you. He will get there. 

He is the ultimate scrappy entrepreneur. And he has a little bit of what my grandfather had, where he can tell you something hard in three different ways and you still want to work for him. Which, if you have ever seen it, is genuinely incredible to watch.

That isn’t fully me. But I deeply admire that in him and I’ve tried to understand how to use a version of it in my own way.

What I learned watching him build United Franchise Group is that scale is not just an operational challenge. It is a human one. Systems matter. Capital matters. But as a franchise company grows, the distance between leadership and the individual owner naturally gets wider. That distance can become dangerous. The real test of scale is whether the culture still reaches the person closest to the customer. He also taught me something I have repeated more times than I can count. Kids spell love T-I-M-E. And franchise owners spell love the exact same way.

“Franchise owners spell love T-I-M-E. If you show up, look them in the eye, and say I want to understand where you’re coming from, they will respect you.”

Working with family: what people do not see

People sometimes imagine family businesses as either perfect or a total disaster. The reality is it’s neither.

My dad, my brothers, and I disagree all the time. We don’t see every decision the same way. We debate things, sometimes passionately. But once we leave the room, we are all on the same page, and that’s always been the case.

What makes it work is that we know where each other’s hearts are. We are close outside of work. We hang out. That does not mean everything is perfect or that we do not drive each other crazy. But we trust each other’s intentions and instincts. We know we all care about the same thing and that centers our approach to decision making and building a consensus.

I appreciate my dad for taking it when I push back. And I know I have to take it when he pushes back on me. That’s the deal. And honestly, that dynamic, fight it out privately, be unified publicly, is something I have tried to build into how our leadership team operates too.

Stepping into Signarama in my twenties

When I became President of Signarama, I was in my twenties. I was honored. I was also aware that I was not the first name on everyone’s list. I knew that, and I understood it. If I had my life savings invested in a franchise and someone told me the new president was a 20-something with no experience in the role, I probably would have raised an eyebrow too. 

Years later, owners have told me exactly that. And I get it now in a way I could not then.

What I felt most at the time was that I didn’t want to mess anything up. I wanted to make my dad proud. I wanted to make the owners proud. And yeah, I had a chip on my shoulder about the people who thought it was a bad move. That chip was fuel. 

So, I outworked everybody. My wife Laura was on board, and she understood what the deal was. In my first four years as president, before COVID, I was probably gone 65 to 70 percent of the time. Visiting owners, meeting vendors, doing trade shows. I was a maniac about it. Not because I was speaking. Because I was listening.

Every trip helped me understand our franchisees a little better. Every conversation made me better in the role. And over time, people stopped seeing me as Ray’s son and started seeing me as someone who genuinely cared about helping them succeed. That did not happen because of a title. It happened because of time.

How I lead differently than my dad, and why

I am not trying to be my dad. He is not trying to be me. But I have had to figure out who I am in this role, and some of that has meant doing things that didn’t come naturally to me at first. 

My instinct is to not cause rifts. If something is frustrating me, my default is to just work around it, figure it out, not make it a big issue. I am not going to fight for those types of things just to fight. 

But in this role, I have to be more direct than that. People need to see the emotion. I have to wear it on my sleeve a little more than I naturally would. I have to be in people’s business even when my default is to let people do their thing. It’s a constant adjustment. But the role requires it. 

What I want the next generation to inherit

This is something my dad thinks about seriously, and so do I. The question of how you preserve a culture as a business grows, and what legacy we want to leave behind for the next generation. 

My answer is that it is that culture has to be intentional. You can feel what the culture is even when it is hard to put entirely on paper. And the way you protect it is by living it. Showing up at a conference and moving things when they need to be moved. Driving back from Orlando after a vendor meeting just to spend time with the franchise owners who needed to see you. Not because anyone is watching, but because that is what you do. 

As for who comes next, my daughters are four and one and a half. They have both been in my office more times than I can count. My brother’s families are growing. My cousins will have kids. There is going to be a lot of people who could be part of this someday if they want to be and what I want them to inherit is not a logo or a market position. 

It’s the belief that entrepreneurship is worth opening to more people. The respect for franchisees as partners, not revenue. The discipline to improve systems without losing what made them worth building in the first place. Treat people well. Work hard. Stay humble. Show up. 

Those lessons have served three generations of this family. I have a feeling they will still matter for the next three. 

The Way, I see It

Roy Titus built something because people trusted him completely. Leadership is earning enough trust that people take the journey with you. 

Ray Titus built United Franchise Group by refusing to accept what he could not do and pushing through it. 

Family business means fighting it out privately and being unified publicly. It works because everyone knows where each other’s heart is. 

Franchise owners spell love T-I-M-E. Showing up is the job, especially early. 

Credibility is not inherited. It is earned through time, consistency, and genuine care for the people you serve. 

Culture is preserved by living it, not writing it on a wall.