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We blogged about the success of Young Hunks Hauling Junk this week for a reason: we were pleased to highlight the success of young entrepreneurs. We’ve written in the past about how young grads are turning to franchising because jobs in the financial sector and beyond are gone at the moment. And guess what? It works both ways, as franchisors are beginning to search out the best young entrepreneurs.

There was a compelling story in the Wall Street Journal about this phenomenon recently. Essentially, franchisors are casting off worries about young business-people being too green or inexperienced and openly courting them.

“Quite frankly, sharp people coming out of school have choices, and so we’re trying to give them a reason to at least consider us,” says Joe Bourdow, president of Valpak

A lot of the story focuses on Valpak, and in particular, the relationship between young entrepreneur Nicholas Hernandez and his ‘boss and mentor’ Bobby Coco. Valpack has a strong program for rewarding successful young franchisees, and we’d urge our younger readers to explore franchises that go out of their way to train them and show them the ropes. It’s hard getting a business off the ground at any age, and it’s exciting to see a franchise going out of their way to provide incentives for young entrepreneurs.

Mr. Coco says programs like this were unheard of when he opened his first franchise at age 21—a move he could afford only because he convinced the owner at the time to give him a payment plan. “We really weren’t handed the opportunity; we had to stick it out ourselves,” he says. “We’re at least giving them the opportunity, but they still have to earn it.”

The ice cream franchise sector is displaying strength despite the economic challenges of the moment, the latest franchise report by Franchise Direct states. Franchise Direct, one of the world’s top franchise portals, has assessed the ice cream market after examining the UFOC’s of 18 franchises and in its ice cream franchise report, it found an industry overcoming seasonality to provide a truly affordable luxury during hard financial times.

Franchise Direct brings great expertise and knowledge of the franchise industry to these studies. It has published a number of reports on various franchising industries this year, assessing the pizza, coffee and automotive franchise industries as well as the recently released rankings of the Top 100 Global Franchises.

Ice cream franchises, like all businesses, are dealing with challenging economic factors at the moment. This is simply another hurdle for ice cream franchises, which exist in an industry which is, by nature, seasonal. But Franchise Direct found that ice cream franchises have displayed a knack for innovation in recent years that makes them somewhat immune to both changes in the weather and the economy.

Industry-wise, the study found an industry that is consolidating. While revenue across the industry has slipped 4% since 2004, total sales among the top ten percent of ice cream franchises is up 32% over the same period. The Franchise Direct study found that the main consumers of ice cream are families and children, with the African-American community particularly loyal to this industry. Of the 18 franchises assessed here, 8 have been franchising for four years or less, which shows a developing industry.

While the quintessential image of the 1950’s ice cream parlor continues to exist in the minds of many consumers, today’s ice cream franchises come many shapes and sizes. The classic ice cream stores like Ben & Jerry’s and Carvel now compete with specialist ice-cream franchises like Marble Slab or Maggie Moo’s or mobile ice-cream franchises like Coolcycle.

Ice cream franchises have a proven track record of innovation which prepares them well for these uncertain economic times. With a range of healthy, low-fat products and an interest in green technologies, ice cream franchises have proven adaptable to changes in consumer taste. They have responded accordingly to the recession, marketing ice cream as a tasty and cheap treat.

Thanks to a perennially popular product and a range of franchise concepts, ice cream franchises are displaying resilience in what continues to be difficult economic times.

Blogging here with Franchise Direct involves taking a keen interest in the franchises that are listed on the website. So when one of the Franchise Direct franchises is singled out for distinction, we like to pass on the honor. 

So well done to College Hunks Hauling Junk, who were named among Inc Magazine’s Top 500 franchises. The founders of this junk hauling franchise, Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman had previously been ranked as “Top 30 Entrepreneurs in America Under the Age of 30”, and this ranking is an even greater distinction.

“To be acknowledge by Inc. is a great honor for our company,” said Nick Friedman, President of College Hunks Hauling Junk. “We aspire to be the most preferred junk hauling company in the nation. To be among the most dynamic, innovative, powerhouse companies is a testament to our business model, employees and growth.”

These franchise has shown extreme growth over the last few years, having been started as a part-time business in 2005. There are definitely a few other Franchise Direct franchises on the list, but we’d like to single out the Hunks for acheiving so much, so young. If you are looking for a franchise opportunity, College Hunks Hauling Junk have certainly displayed an innovative streak over the last few years. They are certainly a franchise to watch.

In today’s business world, a franchisee can no longer just open their doors and expect business to come rushing through the door. They must be engaged with social platforms as well.

In this sense, today’s franchise owners are not only obliged to be skilled and professional in dealing with customers on a face-to-face level, they must also be masters of the virtual world, marketing their business to customers and like-minded companies out there. It’s a lot to cover, but luckily we’re to here to make it as easy as possible.

Groups

This is where every social networker starts. It’s what brings most people to the internet: the ability to interface with larger groups of known and unknown people with whom we share a number of mutual interests. The challenge for a businessperson is to know where to begin. We all know about the Facebook’s and Myspace’s of the world. They might be a huge network where you can interact with friends and colleagues, but in our experience, they’re so popular, they can bog you down. We recommend entrepreneurs connect with networks solely dedicated to business. The first destination should always be LinkedIn. With LinkedIn, you’ll be tapped into a very broad network of like-minded business people. There’s a range of forums that exist on many different topics. Being active on LinkedIn will bolster your business credentials tenfold. There are some upstarts out there that host stellar business communities. Startup Nation not only hosts a top entrepreneur hub, but they have an excellent knowledge hub. PartnerUp’s growing business community features property listings, while Biznik hosts both city-based networks and infuses the thrust of romance websites in order to promote collaborative business experiences. Our advice is to maintain a presence on all of these sites and see what works for you.

Information

As you beef up your franchise social networks, you might encounter more and more questions about the industry. Luckily, there are a number of websites that provide reliable information. Wikipedia’s franchising site has a lot of info, even if its authors may not be entirely reliable. Franchise Direct’s information center is also very trustworthy.

Bookmark

Bookmarking is also a great way to stay on top of the latest articles that are written about franchise industry. Rather than be constantly scouring the internet or relying on Google updates, bookmarking sites let you not only keep abreast of the latest news stories on franchising, but you get a great insight into the buzz stories of the moment. That’s essential for the franchisee or an entrepreneur looking for an edge. Digg might be one of the most popular bookmarking sites on the internet, but in our experience, sites likes Delicious and Technorati tend to be better at providing more concise franchising links, not just ones pertaining to sports franchises. Better yet are business bookmarking sites given over entirely to the world of small business. For this category, we recommend bizsugar, which is constantly reliable with its story feed.

Blogs

Newspapers may run the occasional story on the franchising industry, but we have found that franchising blogs tend to offer more insightful commentary on a less formal level. Best of all, you can bring the subject on, as you discuss it in the comment section with other bloggers and the author of the post itself. We recommend the Franchise King blog, which is one of the more popular franchise blogs and the BlueMauMau blog, which offers very independent and honest advice on the entire franchising industry. If you’re looking to track the latest posts in the franchise blogging community, Alltop’s constantly-updating page is an essential resource.

Comments

Once you start reading more and more blog posts, you will inevitably want to move the subject on, via ‘Comment’ section. Some of the most lively comment sections on franchise can be found on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends website.

Twitter

Now while many of these websites are quite well established, Twitter is certainly the future of social networking. We live in a culture that likes thing instantaneously, and Twitter provides that better than any platform out there. Twitter can be used in a myriad of ways, but we think it works best as to advertise and to network. Just read this article article featuring 7 excellent uses for Twitter for restaurant franchises. At the same time, you’re allowed to follow and communicate with some of the best minds in business, not to mention fellow franchisees. Best of all, Twitter is still such an evolving platform, it’s unclear if there are still more benefits that might come out of it. Our advice is to get tweeting right away.

Answer Platforms

Have a question about franchising but not sure who to ask? Sites like Yahoo! Answer and answer.com can tell you everything you need to know about franchising.

Keywords

Figure out which words are the most important to your franchise concerns and strategically enter them into search engines like Google to target various elements of the franchise industry.

Video/audio:

More and more media is being created to explain the world of franchising. Franchise Direct have a YoutTube page with exclusive videos on the franchising sector. Meanwhile, franchise podcasts are becoming very popular as well.

Forums

Interact with like-minded business people on forums dedicated to the franchising industry. Two of the best forums are Franchise Chat and the Small Business Forum

We’re going to be hearing a lot about climate change in the coming months.

All week, the New York Times and others have been running lead stories and editorials about the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. It will probably arouse the biggest media clatter about the environment since the Kyoto Protocol was signed. The media focus will not only center on what government’s can do to cut climate change, but on what businesses and citizens can do.

The hyperactive bloggers at HarvardBusiness.org have written a noteworthy post about green priorities in this coming eco-age. Though many businesses and franchises like to promote even the smallest eco-changes they’ve introduced, blogger Auden Schendler posits that companies need to do more - as much as possible - to fight to save the environment.

“Companies that tout their “green” dish detergent, and consumers who buy it, are distracting themselves from the real problem. Climate change is a desperate situation, and we have very little time to implement a solution. Any substantial energy spent on new environmental programs that don’t address climate are actively detrimental because they divert resources from where they’re urgently needed.”

It’s an interesting hard-line approach to what is a global problem that hasn’t gone away despite the downturn in the global economy. We would congratulate franchises for taking strides to protect the environment. There’s always more we can do, of course. Ultimately, we have our own choices to make. I do agree with Schendler that if more businesses stood up and took their concerns about the environment to Capital Hill, more would get done to protect the environment.

A lot of businesses are hyping their green credentials. It will be interesting to see what comes of the green movement in the coming weeks and months.