Every founder has a story to tell.
Not just the story of how they started the business, but the story of why it exists, what problem it solves, and why someone should believe in it. For many founders, that story represents years of sacrifice, countless difficult decisions, and more than a little personal risk. It’s deeply personal, which is exactly why choosing the right public relations agency is such an important decision.
Most people assume founders hire a PR agency because they want media coverage. They want their company featured in national publications, opportunities to speak at industry conferences, or interviews on podcasts. Those outcomes are certainly valuable, but after more than three decades working with founders, franchise brands, and emerging companies, I’ve learned they’re rarely the reason a relationship lasts.
Founders aren’t looking for someone to simply generate publicity. They’re looking for someone they trust to represent their business when they’re not in the room.
That distinction matters.
A great public relations agency doesn’t just know how to write a press release or pitch a reporter. It understands the founder’s vision, the business behind the brand, and the audiences that matter most, whether that’s prospective customers, investors, franchisees, employees, or industry media. It knows how to translate years of hard work into stories that build credibility and move the business forward.
At Fishman PR, that’s always been our philosophy. As a founder myself, I understand that every company is built differently because every founder is different. Some are driven by innovation. Others by service. Others by a desire to create opportunities for the people around them. Before we think about communications strategy, we spend time understanding what matters most to the person leading the business.
Only then can we determine how to tell that story in a way that resonates.
That approach has shaped our work with founder-led franchise brands for more than 35 years. Fishman PR is a franchise public relations agency that helps founder-led franchise brands build credibility, strengthen their reputations, and grow through integrated marketing & PR. Every client engagement begins with understanding the business first and building the communications strategy second.
The Best PR Starts Long Before the First Pitch
One of the first questions we ask a founder isn’t, “What’s your announcement?”
It’s, “What’s important to you?”
That answer tells us far more than any press release ever could.
Every founder defines success differently. One may be focused on attracting franchisees who share their values. Another may be preparing for investment. A third may be trying to establish credibility in a crowded category before expanding into new markets. Those goals require different communications strategies because they’re built around different business objectives.
This is where I think many agencies get the process backwards. They begin with tactics instead of understanding. They jump immediately into brainstorming story ideas, identifying media targets, or building campaign calendars before they’ve taken the time to understand the business itself.
We’ve always believed the opposite.
Before we tell your story, we want to understand why it matters.
That means learning how the business was built, what challenges you’ve overcome, what motivates your team, and what kind of company you’re trying to create. It also means understanding the audiences you’re trying to reach. The story that resonates with a prospective franchise owner is often very different from the one that resonates with a consumer, an investor, or a trade publication.
Great public relations isn’t about telling every story.
It’s about telling the right story to the right audience at the right time.
That requires more than communications expertise. It requires curiosity, business acumen, and the willingness to listen before speaking.
Over the years, I’ve found that’s often where trust begins. Founders quickly recognize the difference between an agency that’s trying to sell a campaign and one that’s genuinely trying to understand the business they’re building. The latter doesn’t just produce better media results. It becomes a far more valuable strategic partner over time.
Trust Is Earned Through Honest Advice
Once we understand the business, the real work begins.
Many founders assume the value of a public relations agency comes from its media contacts. Relationships certainly matter, but in my experience, they’re only part of the equation. The strongest agency relationships aren’t built because an agency knows the right reporters. They’re built because founders know they’re getting honest advice.
That isn’t always easy.
There are times when an announcement isn’t ready. A product launch needs more time. A story angle that feels significant internally simply isn’t compelling enough for the media. Sometimes the market is focused on something else entirely, and the smartest recommendation is to wait.
Those conversations can be uncomfortable, particularly when founders have invested significant time, energy, and emotion into an initiative. But they’re also some of the most important conversations we have.
One of the greatest responsibilities of a trusted PR partner is protecting credibility, both with the media and with the founder.
It’s easy to say yes to every idea. It’s much harder to explain why a different approach will produce a better outcome. We’ve learned over the years that founders don’t benefit from constant agreement. They benefit from perspective.
That perspective comes from experience, but it also comes from independence. Our job isn’t to validate every decision. It’s to evaluate opportunities objectively and recommend the course of action that’s most likely to help the business achieve its long-term goals.
There have been times when we’ve advised clients to postpone announcements that would have generated very little meaningful coverage. We’ve encouraged founders to spend more time refining their message before stepping onto a stage or sitting down for an interview. We’ve also recommended saying nothing at all during moments when other voices were adding noise rather than value.
None of those recommendations increase billable hours. None are made because they’re the easiest path forward. They’re made because they’re in the client’s best interest.
I’ve always believed that if an agency is afraid to tell a founder “not yet” or “I don’t think this is the right move,” it’s no longer acting as a strategic advisor. It’s simply acting as a vendor.
The agencies that earn lasting trust are the ones willing to have difficult conversations with empathy, honesty, and respect. Ironically, those are often the conversations clients remember most because they’re the moments when they realize you care more about their long-term success than the next headline.
That’s the kind of relationship we’ve always tried to build at Fishman PR. Our clients aren’t hiring us to agree with them. They’re trusting us to bring decades of communications experience, franchise expertise, and sound judgment to the table, even when the recommendation isn’t the easiest one to hear.
Great Storytelling Starts With Understanding Franchising
Every industry has its own language, priorities, and dynamics. Franchising is no different.
After spending more than three decades working alongside founder-led franchise brands, I’ve learned that effective public relations requires much more than communications expertise. It requires a deep understanding of the business model itself and the people who make it work.
Fishman PR specializes exclusively in serving franchise brands, giving our team deep experience in franchise development, executive visibility, consumer media relations, crisis communications, and long-term reputation management. That specialization allows us to understand the nuances of franchising in ways that generalist agencies often cannot.
Effective franchise public relations requires communicating with multiple audiences simultaneously, including prospective franchisees, consumers, employees, investors, and industry media. Each audience has different priorities, different questions, and different reasons for engaging with the brand.
A franchise brand isn’t communicating with just one audience. It may be speaking to prospective franchisees who are considering one of the biggest investments of their lives, consumers deciding where to spend their money, existing franchise owners who want to feel confident in the brand’s direction, employees, investors, lenders, and industry media. Each audience is looking for something different, and each evaluates credibility through a different lens.
That’s why we spend so much time understanding our clients before we ever begin telling their stories.
What inspired the founder to build this company? What values drive the organization? Why do franchisees choose this brand over countless others? What makes the culture different? Where is the business headed over the next five years?
Those answers shape every recommendation we make.
Over the years, we’ve developed a strong instinct for the stories that resonate because we’ve seen them play out across hundreds of franchise brands. We know what captures the attention of trade media, what gives prospective franchisees confidence, what positions founders as credible industry leaders, and what creates meaningful visibility without sacrificing authenticity.
There’s certainly experience behind those instincts, but there’s also something less tangible.
It comes from genuinely enjoying the people we work with.
One of the greatest privileges of this profession is getting a front-row seat to founders’ journeys. We’ve watched brands grow from a handful of locations into nationally recognized names. We’ve celebrated openings, acquisitions, awards, leadership milestones, and personal milestones alongside our clients. We’ve also stood beside them during crises, difficult decisions, and periods of uncertainty.
When you’ve shared those moments together, the relationship changes.
You stop thinking about clients as accounts.
You start thinking about them as people whose success genuinely matters to you.
That perspective influences every part of our work. It makes us ask better questions, offer more thoughtful advice, and advocate more passionately because we understand what’s at stake. Behind every announcement, every interview, and every strategic decision is a founder who has invested years of hard work into building something meaningful.
Our responsibility is to make sure that story is told with the same level of care.
In an Industry Focused on Efficiency, We Choose Relationships
The communications industry has changed dramatically since I started my career.
The tools are faster. Research that once took hours can now happen in minutes. News moves at a pace that would have been unimaginable a generation ago, and technology continues to reshape how agencies work behind the scenes.
Those changes have created real advantages for clients, and we’ve embraced many of them ourselves.
What hasn’t changed is the importance of relationships.
In fact, I would argue they’re becoming even more valuable.
As more businesses automate customer service, outsource communications, and prioritize efficiency above all else, something important is being lost. Too many service relationships have become transactional. Interactions are measured by response times and deliverables rather than trust, understanding, and genuine partnership.
Public relations has always been, and will always be, a people business.
Media relationships are built between people. Brand reputations are built through people. The trust that inspires someone to invest in a franchise, recommend a brand to a friend, or join a leadership team is ultimately rooted in human connection.
The same is true of the relationship between a founder and their PR agency.
Some of our clients have been with us for decades. Others came to us during one chapter of their business and returned years later when a new opportunity emerged. Many have become close friends. We’ve watched their children grow up, celebrated weddings and retirements, mourned losses, and cheered each other’s successes.
That’s not something you expect when you hire a public relations agency.
It’s certainly not something you can manufacture.
It happens when both sides invest in the relationship over time.
I’ve often said that we don’t simply represent brands. We become stewards of their stories. That responsibility comes with an obligation to understand not only what our clients are trying to accomplish, but why it matters so deeply to them.
When you know someone’s story, you communicate differently. You advocate more thoughtfully. You recognize opportunities that someone without that history might overlook, and you’re willing to have difficult conversations because you’ve earned the trust to do so.
The longer we’ve been in business, the more convinced I’ve become that this is our greatest competitive advantage.
Not because relationships replace strategy, but because they make strategy better.
The best public relations campaigns don’t begin with a media list or a messaging document.
They begin with people who trust each other enough to tell the truth, challenge assumptions, celebrate successes, and work toward the same goal.
Experience Doesn’t Just Build Expertise. It Builds Perspective.
Every founder faces moments of uncertainty.
There are decisions about when to expand, how to communicate through change, when to respond publicly, and when it’s better to remain quiet. There are product launches that feel monumental internally but may not yet resonate externally. There are leadership transitions, franchise development milestones, and unexpected challenges that require thoughtful communication.
No two situations are exactly alike, but after more than 35 years working with founder-led franchise brands, we’ve seen enough to recognize the patterns.
Experience isn’t valuable because it means we’ve been in business for a long time. It’s valuable because every client, every challenge, and every success has taught us something we can bring to the next engagement. Over the past three decades, Fishman PR has worked alongside hundreds of founder-led franchise brands at every stage of growth, from emerging concepts to nationally recognized systems. That breadth of experience gives us valuable pattern recognition when advising clients through opportunities and challenges alike.
We’ve learned that the best stories are rarely the loudest ones. We’ve learned that credibility is earned over time and can be lost in an instant. We’ve learned that founders often need a sounding board just as much as they need a communications strategy. Most importantly, we’ve learned that every recommendation should support the long-term health of the brand, not just generate short-term attention.
That perspective influences every conversation we have.
When a client calls with a new idea, we’re not evaluating whether it might generate headlines. We’re asking whether it aligns with their long-term vision, strengthens their reputation, and moves the business closer to its goals. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s not. Either way, our responsibility is to give advice that serves the client, not ourselves.
Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to work with founders who continue to trust us through multiple stages of growth. We’ve seen emerging brands become industry leaders. We’ve helped clients navigate acquisitions, leadership changes, economic uncertainty, and periods of extraordinary growth. In many cases, those relationships have lasted far longer than anyone expected because they were built on mutual respect rather than transactions.
I often tell founders that when you hire a PR agency, you’re placing a piece of your reputation in someone else’s hands.
That’s not a responsibility we ever take lightly.
Our role isn’t simply to generate visibility. It’s to help protect the trust you’ve worked so hard to earn while finding meaningful opportunities to share your story with the audiences that matter most.
After all, media coverage comes and goes.
A strong reputation endures.
Final Thoughts
Every founder has a story worth telling.
The challenge isn’t finding someone who can write a press release or secure an interview. It’s finding a communications partner who understands the business behind the story, respects what you’ve built, and cares enough to help you make the right decisions, even when those decisions aren’t the easiest ones.
At Fishman PR, we’ve always believed public relations is about far more than publicity. It’s about building credibility, strengthening relationships, and helping founder-led franchise brands earn the trust of the people who matter most.
That philosophy has guided our work for more than three decades, and it’s the reason so many of our clients have become long-term partners and lifelong friends.
Every founder’s story deserves to be told by someone who understands the business behind it.
If you’re evaluating PR partners for your franchise brand, we’d love to learn more about your goals and discuss how strategic public relations can support your next stage of growth. Learn more about our approach to franchise public relations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a franchise PR agency do?
A franchise PR agency helps franchisors build credibility with prospective franchisees, customers, investors, employees, and industry media. Unlike general public relations firms, franchise PR agencies understand the unique dynamics of franchise development, local marketing, franchisee communications, and executive visibility.
How is franchise public relations different from traditional PR?
Franchise public relations requires balancing multiple audiences at once, including consumers, franchise prospects, existing franchisees, employees, investors, and the media. Successful franchise PR strategies support both brand growth and franchise development while protecting the company’s reputation.
When should a founder hire a PR agency?
Founders often benefit from partnering with a PR agency before major milestones such as franchise expansion, funding announcements, leadership changes, product launches, acquisitions, or national growth initiatives. Building credibility over time is typically more effective than seeking publicity only when news arises.
What should founders look for in a PR agency?
Founders should look for a PR agency that understands their industry, provides honest strategic counsel, communicates proactively, and takes the time to understand the business behind the brand. Long-term partnerships are often built on trust, transparency, and shared goals rather than media placements alone.
Why does franchise industry experience matter?
An agency with franchise experience understands franchise recruitment, development marketing, executive positioning, local and national media, franchisee communications, and the operational realities of growing a franchise system. That experience allows communications strategies to align with broader business goals.
About the Author
Sherri Fishman is Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Fishman PR. For more than 35 years, she has helped founder-led franchise brands build credibility through strategic public relations, executive visibility, media relations, and long-term communications strategy. Throughout her career, she has partnered with hundreds of emerging and established franchise systems, helping them navigate growth, change, and industry leadership.