Shining the spotlight on a pair of consecutive Grand Prize-winning franchises focused on prioritizing franchisees and providing excellent service
by Jordan Whitehouse
Just like last year, EverLine Coatings and Services and Inspiration Learning Center took home the two Grand Prizes at the Canadian Franchise Association’s 2023 Awards of Excellence.
Determined by franchisee surveys, the awards are handed out every April to franchise systems in recognition of elite operations and dedication to leadership, business planning, and franchisee relationships. There are seven award categories based on franchise size and type. The Grand Prizes are given to a Gold winner in the Traditional grouping (those with brick-and-mortar locations) and a Gold winner in the Non-Traditional grouping (those that are mobile or home-based).
“Winning this again is more wind beneath our wings and just a really nice recognition from our franchisees,” says John Evans, the founder and CEO of EverLine Coatings and Services, which won for Non-Traditional franchises.
Angel Kuang agrees. The founder and CEO of Inspiration Learning Center says that she and her team love seeing the Traditional awards hanging in their offices. “And so do our clients,” she adds. “They trust you more when they see those up there.”
So how do EverLine and Inspiration keep stacking up all these recognitions? And what’s new with both franchises? Franchise Canada recently sat down with Evans and Kuang to find out.
EverLine Coatings and Services
When we caught up with John Evans last year, he talked about how his company was seeing “supersonic velocity.” At the beginning of 2022, there were 17 EverLine locations across Canada. By the end of the year, there were 71 across North America.
“It’s really the same story again this year,” says Evans. “But we’re seeing even greater growth—and especially in the U.S., where we’re opening about three or four locations a month right now.”
Another part of the EverLine story is that as the company has scaled, so has its capacity to take on more work, says Evans.
But that work isn’t just parking lot line painting, which is what EverLine primarily focused on when Evans launched the company in Calgary, Alberta about a decade ago. Now, franchisees can offer clients a one-stop shop for parking lot and interior floor maintenance. That includes everything from asphalt repair and sealcoating to epoxy flooring solutions to speed bump and post installs. The company is even testing out small asphalt paving jobs.
Evans admits that it has been a lot of growth and change in a relatively short period of time. But he says that a key to sustaining it all is maintaining strong relationships with franchisees. “When we started going through all this growth, I said, ‘Over my dead body are we going to lose those relationships and that homey feel that made this special in the first place.’ And so we’ve really focused on making sure that magic is still there.”
Ottawa franchisee Stephane Beaudoin is one of those people still feeling the magic. He joined the company in
2020 after 26 years working as a financial advisor and hasn’t looked back. On top of being the franchisee and president of the Ottawa outpost, he recently opened a location in Montreal West and also bought the rights for the 19 franchise locations in Quebec.
Looking back over the past four years, he says he almost can’t believe the growth he’s experienced. “I got in right at the beginning of COVID, and the next year we doubled our numbers. The year after that, the same thing. We’ve just been increasing like crazy.”
He says there are several reasons why business has been so good. One is that he has put a lot of hard work into everything. Clients also need this type of work year after year. But the biggest reason could be that the support from the franchisor has been, as he says, “incredible.”
“We’re not making the types of mistakes that have already been made. We have all this marketing help, all this knowledge, all these tools if literally anything comes up that we’re having trouble with.”
As for the near future of EverLine, Evans says it’s full steam ahead. Most of the territory expansion will happen in the U.S., but there is still some room for growth in Canada in the Toronto and Vancouver areas, as well as Vancouver Island. The company is also exploring other types of specialty services that could further boost franchisees’ bottom lines.
“We just continue to have our heads down,” says Evans. “The story has always been growth here. That’s what EverLine does.”
Inspiration Learning Center
Inspiration Learning Center founder and CEO Angel Kuang says her focus remains squarely on her franchisees—as it always has been.
When Kuang arrived in Canada from China as a young educator in the early 2000s, she had almost no money to start a business. But she was passionate about education and wanted to launch a tutoring centre. So, she found a way and opened her own Inspiration Learning Center in Scarborough, Ontario in 2003.
Twenty years later, as Inspiration has grown to 13 locations in Ontario and B.C. and expanded its tutoring services to almost every grade and subject, Kuang remembers those tough early years as a business owner. “I started from scratch, and so I remember what it’s like for a small business owner, how they feel. So, I try to focus more on them and how they grow.”
One example is that Kuang spends more of her own money on marketing and advertising rather than sharing those costs evenly with franchisees. Another is that she will implement a grand opening marketing incentive rebate of $20,000.
Toronto area franchisee and educator Cleo Zhu certainly feels the impact of these types of supports. A few years ago, as Zhu’s own kids and her friends’ kids were progressing through school, she was looking for high-quality learning materials for them. “People always asked me, ‘Why don’t you open your own school?’ So finally, I said, ‘Why not?’”
But instead of going out on her own, Zhu soon met Kuang. From Kuang, she learned how valuable the backing from Inspiration was to franchisees.
Take the franchisee training program, says Zhu. It begins with two weeks of in-class training on everything from the education industry to Inspiration’s teaching methodology to tutor recruitment and marketing. The new franchisee then visits existing locations to observe the daily routines. Once the franchisee is ready to open, Kuang sends a team to help with everything, including the setup, hiring, and even initial customer inquiries.
This kind of meaningful support also extends to students, says Zhu. “When I first met with Angel and learned about Inspiration’s East-meets-West methodology, I got really interested, and that was another big reason for my decision to join.”
That methodology combines the traditional Western educational approaches to developing critical thinking skills with the Eastern approaches for cognitive application. “This empowers students to excel in a variety of areas,” says Kuang.
Zhu has seen the impact of this unique approach time and again—and it’s what she loves most about being an Inspiration franchisee. “At the end, when students see their big progress, they come to us and say, ‘Oh, thank you so much. Because of you, I got an A or an A+.’ We really feel so happy for them.”
Kuang says she has no plans to stop innovating with her company.
This year, for instance, instead of hiring an outside consultant to help her further develop the Inspiration brand and market it to new franchisees, she’s hiring an internal team to do that work instead. “I just thought, my team has been in the system for years and they know how it works. They are the perfect ones to promote our franchise. So why not? Let’s try.”
