Eleanor Vaida Gerhards

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The Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association provides many benefits to its hospitality industry members.  One of those benefits is access to its interesting and useful webinar series.  This month’s webinar “Five Star State of Mind: Handling Online Reviews” was presented by Ali Schwartz of Yelp.   Unlike Yelp’s sales team, Ali is a…

The Philadelphia Chapter of the International Franchise Association’s Women’s Franchise Network hosted its annual summer meeting this past week.   For those of you who do not know, the local chapters of the IFA WFN’s is a local community designed to create, promote and inspire a network of female franchise business professionals dedicated to strengthening the…

Mark Siebert, CEO of the well-known franchising consulting firm iFranchise Group, authored a very interesting article in a recent issue of Franchise Times magazine about “influencers” in franchise sales. As a corporate and regulatory transactional franchise attorney, I represent both franchisors (in the sale) and franchisees, multi-unit owners and area developers (in the purchase)…

The female panelists at last month’s Philadelphia IFA Women’s Franchise Network Meeting provided so many great tips on how they utilize social media online to drive franchise sales that we couldn’t fit them into one blog post! Feedback from the 40 women professionals in the audience was overwhelmingly positive. Below are some additional takeaways…

Yesterday, Washington’s Governor, Jay Inslee signed HB1450 [PDF] which targets the use of restrictive covenants in the State of Washington (the “Non-Compete Act”). The signing of the Non-Compete Act follows the recent settlement on March 18, 2019 of three cases filed by private plaintiffs challenging the no-poaching provisions in franchise agreements of Auntie Anne’s, Arby’s…

Top marketing executives from some of the most popular and growing franchise systems recently spoke at the Philadelphia Chapter of the International Franchise Association Women’s Franchise Network meeting about capitalizing on social media to increase sales and build business.

According to the esteemed panelists, by far the two most utilized social media sites used in…

Each year in Washington D.C., the IFA joins forces with the International Bar Association’s Franchising Committee (IBA) to hold the IBA/IFA Joint Conference immediately after the IFA Legal Symposium. This was my first year attending. As our international franchise practice grows, I found it a rewarding opportunity to educate myself about the latest issues facing…

The International Franchise Expo (IFE) starts TODAY (May 31st) and runs through Saturday, June 2nd at the Javits Center in New York City.  The IFE is one the largest franchise expo in the country.  This is an opportunity for franchise systems to market their brands face to face with prospective franchisees and for prospective…