Making a Connection through the Media

As a franchisor, connecting with your consumers, employees, current franchisees, and potential franchisees through the media is an important part of strengthening and growing your brand. This is a way to share information about growth, new products, unique brand qualities, and new developments in your communities.

Sunbrook Academy was recently featured on the front page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Living section. As an Atlanta-based brand, we are excited to share our planned expansion and unique learning method with the communities through Atlanta that have supported Sunbrook Academy throughout our 20 year history.

I wanted to share this great article and explain how important it is for a franchise concept to connect with local/state-wide media outlets in your market to connect with consumers and franchisees on a personal level. Below is the full article as well as a link to the online version of the article.

School Outlines Its Plans to Grow
Sunbrook Academy to add locations. Expansion will create academy franchises outside of the state. Goal is for academy franchises outside Georgia by 2010.

By Gracie Bonds Staples
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, July 20, 2009

Sunbrook Academy, a private education franchise that provides individualized care to its students, has announced plans to more than double the number of its locations over the next year.

The Cobb County-based franchise expects to break ground on five new locations by the end of the year and 10 more in 2010, when it plans to make its first foray out of Georgia, a first in its 20-year history.

“Our growth has been slow and deliberate because we value quality over quantity,” said Jacki Gass, president of Sunbrook Franchising Inc. and owner of Sunbrook Academy at Legacy Park in Kennesaw.

Gass said there are currently seven Sunbrook locations, mostly in Cobb and Cherokee counties. Plans call for expanding the franchise across metro Atlanta to Roswell, Alpharetta, Johns Creek and eventually outside the state, said R. Scott Sutton, vice president of franchising.

Sutton, who first came to Sunbrook as a consumer, said the preschool caters to parents looking for an environment that will help their child grow not just educationally but socially and emotionally as well. The father of two said he first became interested in Sunbrook in 2008 when he enrolled his 6-year-old son Cooper.

In March, after a series of conversations with Sunbrook CEO Neil Gass, he joined the staff.

Typically, about 150 students are enrolled in each of the franchise’s locations, Gass said.

Sunbrook was founded in the early 1980s. It switched to a franchise model in the 1990s but by then had already made a name for itself using what Gass called a “whole child” learning method.

“At Sunbrook Academy, we teach young children the way young children learn best, meaning we teach using developmentally appropriate practices,” she said. For instance, Gass said, if a child needs more work on fine motor skills, they provide experiences for them to cut, draw or build with Legos. If he needs more language development, they might do more work on sounds, vocabulary and reading.

“We don’t treat each child the same because every child learns differently,” she said.