Franchise Spotlight with Katherine LeBlanc

Katherine LeBlanc
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Conversations with the leaders who are actually building franchising - from the executive suite to the field. Each season explores what success looks like right now, what franchise leaders should be paying attention to, and how the best brands are delivering real returns for their franchisees. Because at the end of the day, franchisee profitability isn't just a metric; it's the whole point. Your host, Katherine LeBlanc, brings 13 years inside franchise systems, having led marketing across six brands spanning food, wellness, beauty, and experience. She's been in the room where these decisions get made. These conversations reflect that: direct, practitioner-level, and built for franchise leaders who don't have time for surface-level takes.

  1. How Kim Gubera Keeps Excellence in Focus | PIRTEK, President & CEO

    May 25

    How Kim Gubera Keeps Excellence in Focus | PIRTEK, President & CEO

    Kim Gubera, President & CEO of PIRTEK, stepped into her role in 2019 and did something almost no leader does — she visited every single franchisee before changing anything. In this conversation, she shares how that decision built the cultural foundation that drove a record-breaking 2025, and how PIRTEK maintains a standard of excellence — including through moments that were anything but easy. This is a straight-talking episode about what franchise leadership actually looks like when the values aren't just on the wall. In this episode: How PIRTEK recruits for franchisee-first thinking at every level of the home officeWhy radical transparency — including disclosing an internal integrity issue at their franchise conference — is the only way to build real trustWhat it takes to sustain franchisee support and culture through rapid unit growthGuest: Kim Gubera, President & CEO, PIRTEK Host: Katherine LeBlanc, Fractional CMO | Apollo CMO Are you a franchise brand leader working on a growth challenge? Katherine works with franchise brands as a Fractional CMO. Learn more at apollocmo.com

    16 min
  2. How K9 Resorts Turned Discipline Into a 50-Location Pet Care Empire | Steve and Jason Parker, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs

    May 18

    How K9 Resorts Turned Discipline Into a 50-Location Pet Care Empire | Steve and Jason Parker, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs

    Steven and Jason Parker have been in the pet care industry since 1999 and franchising K9 Resorts since 2011. In this conversation, they walk Katherine through the disciplined, long-view philosophy that's gotten them to 50 open locations — and what it actually means to award franchises instead of selling them. In this episode: Why they turned down one of their earliest franchise candidates — and how it shaped their development processThe leadership model they use as co-CEO brothers, and how they built a C-suite that complements rather than replicatesThe pet care industry's next evolution: mental enrichment, smaller group sizes, and what "humanization" looks like in 2026Guest: Steven and Jason Parker, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs, K9 Resorts Host: Katherine LeBlanc, Fractional CMO | Apollo CMO Are you a franchise brand leader working on a growth challenge? Katherine works with franchise brands as a Fractional CMO. Learn more at apollocmo.com

    23 min
  3. How Josh Lyon Is Scaling to 600 Units | ScentHound COO

    May 11

    How Josh Lyon Is Scaling to 600 Units | ScentHound COO

    Josh Lyon has been building ScentHound as their COO from seven units to 157 - and he's not slowing down. In this conversation, he gets into what it actually takes to scale a franchise brand with operational discipline intact: the team transitions nobody talks about, the franchisee adoption gap that compounds every time you add complexity, and why simplicity isn't a nice-to-have - it's the differentiator that separates the brands that win from the ones that don't. In this episode: Building and rebuilding your team through three inflection pointsWhy franchisees need to be treated like owners, not employees — and what changes when you doHow ScentHound maps the five-stage journey of franchisees, team members, and customers to create simplicity at every levelGuest: Josh Lyon, Chief Operating Officer, ScentHound Host: Katherine LeBlanc, Fractional CMO | Apollo CMO Are you a franchise brand leader working on a growth challenge? Katherine works with franchise brands as a Fractional CMO. Learn more at apollocmo.com

    31 min
  4. How Doug Flaig Stops the Shiny Object Trap | Stratus Clean CEO

    May 4

    How Doug Flaig Stops the Shiny Object Trap | Stratus Clean CEO

    Doug Flaig, CEO of Stratus Clean, is in the middle of one of the harder things a franchise leader can navigate - a full brand transformation - and he's doing it with a three-tier franchisee network watching every move. In this conversation, Doug gets into why answering the "why" before the "what" is the only change management that actually works, how he uses EOS and tier-based communication groups to keep a diverse franchisee base aligned, and what a career that ran through 7-Eleven, Burger King, and Dunkin Donuts before landing at a smaller company taught him about what it means to really lead. One takeaway that lands hard: nature abhors a vacuum - and if you're not filling it with communication, your franchisees are filling it with speculation. In this episode: Tier-based franchisee communication and why one message doesn't fit every operatorUnit economics as the north star — and what happens to brands that lose sight of itServant leadership, the hedgehog principle, and what it actually means to lead through changeGuest: Doug Flaig, CEO, Stratus Building Solutions Host: Katherine LeBlanc, Fractional CMO | Apollo CMO Are you a franchise brand leader working on a growth challenge? Katherine works with franchise brands as a Fractional CMO. Learn more at apollocmo.com

    28 min
  5. How Alex and Myriam Guerrero Built Trust, Culture, and a Tint World Empire in El Paso | Tint World Franchisees

    Apr 27

    How Alex and Myriam Guerrero Built Trust, Culture, and a Tint World Empire in El Paso | Tint World Franchisees

    Alex and Myriam Guerrero didn't plan on becoming franchise owners — Alex stumbled into it at a USO transition event when a franchise broker showed up and offered a presentation. Four years later, they're running a Tint World location in El Paso, scaling to three stores, and building the kind of franchisee-franchisor trust that most brands spend years trying to manufacture. This conversation gets into what it really takes to build a business with your spouse, what the franchising industry is still getting wrong with veterans, and why legacy franchisees don't need another broadcast — they need a direct conversation. In this episode: What Alex learned about veterans and the franchising knowledge gap — and what he's doing about itHow he and Myriam built a grow-from-within culture they can protect as they scaleWhy their relationship with their franchisor works — and what it would take to replicate that across a networkGuest: Alex and Myriam Guerrero, Franchisees, Tint World Host: Katherine LeBlanc, Fractional CMO | Apollo CMO Are you a franchise brand leader working on a growth challenge? Katherine works with franchise brands as a Fractional CMO. Learn more at apollocmo.com

    27 min
  6. How Alex Pericchi Is Cutting the Noise & Driving Franchise Adoption | PuroClean | VP of Marketing

    Apr 20

    How Alex Pericchi Is Cutting the Noise & Driving Franchise Adoption | PuroClean | VP of Marketing

    Alex Pericchi has spent 12 years as VP of Marketing at PuroClean watching what actually drives franchisee adoption — and what quietly kills it. His answer this year is radical simplification: fewer activities, clearer direction, and a message repeated from every corner of the organization until it lands. If you've ever wondered why franchisees aren't executing on your marketing programs, this conversation will reframe the question entirely. In this episode: Why PuroClean is doing less marketing this year — on purposeThe 80/20 framework Alex uses to cut noise and drive real adoptionHow asking franchisees about their exit plan on day one changes everythingGuest: Alex Pericchi, VP of Marketing, PuroClean Host: Katherine LeBlanc, Fractional CMO | Apollo CMO Are you a franchise brand leader working on a growth challenge? Katherine works with franchise brands as a Fractional CMO. Learn more at apollocmo.com

    26 min
  7. How Jon Sica Builds the Foundation Everyone Else Skipped | President Batteries Plus

    Apr 13

    How Jon Sica Builds the Foundation Everyone Else Skipped | President Batteries Plus

    Jon Sica, President of Batteries Plus, joins Katherine LeBlanc at IFA 2026 for one of the most practical episodes of Franchise Leader Spotlight yet. Jon breaks down why the brand standards conversation lands completely differently when you lead with exit strategy — and how Batteries Plus has been building that into their franchise development process for five years through their Full Circuit program. They also get into the AI infrastructure Batteries Plus is building right now, what raising net worth requirements actually did to their candidate pipeline, and why trust is the only thing that makes any of the tactics work. If you run a franchise brand or support franchisee development, this one is worth the full listen.

    29 min
  8. How Kathy George Outpaced the Industry | President, Spherion Staffing & Recruiting

    Apr 6

    How Kathy George Outpaced the Industry | President, Spherion Staffing & Recruiting

    Kathy George, President of Spherion Staffing and Recruiting, joins Katherine LeBlanc at IFA to talk about the leadership framework that helped an 80-year-old staffing franchise outpace its competitors and its parent company in a year the industry was forecasted to contract. Kathy walks through the 20 Mile March - the collective two-year goal structure she set the night before getting on stage at national convention - and the weekly, monthly, and quarterly communication stack that turned a shared goal into franchisee-to-franchisee accountability. She also gets candid about radical transparency as a real operating principle, the succession challenge building inside multi-generational franchise systems, and why she's had to say no to protect the brand she stewards. If you lead a franchise brand and the gap between what HQ knows and what franchisees feel is wider than you'd like - this one is for you.

    28 min
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About

Conversations with the leaders who are actually building franchising - from the executive suite to the field. Each season explores what success looks like right now, what franchise leaders should be paying attention to, and how the best brands are delivering real returns for their franchisees. Because at the end of the day, franchisee profitability isn't just a metric; it's the whole point. Your host, Katherine LeBlanc, brings 13 years inside franchise systems, having led marketing across six brands spanning food, wellness, beauty, and experience. She's been in the room where these decisions get made. These conversations reflect that: direct, practitioner-level, and built for franchise leaders who don't have time for surface-level takes.

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