Send Your Owners Home Ready For Another Year.
Franchise conventions and annual meetings, regional owner meetings, franchisee advisory councils, awards nights, and field team kickoffs.
A franchisee is not an employee and cannot be managed like one. They signed a personal guarantee, they hire and lose their own people, and they are running a small business that happens to carry your sign. Get the room right and a convention becomes the thing that keeps a struggling owner in the system another year. Chris Sund has spent two decades leading people who chose to stay rather than had to.
Your best owners came to convention for the numbers. They stayed in the system because of a room.
My KC Live, KCTV5 Kansas City →Let your council watch him first.
Convention planning teams and franchisee advisory councils rarely agree on a speaker from a bio alone. Send a clip and let people decide for themselves. Chris has been on morning television in six markets and in Forbes, Inc., and the Midlands Business Journal, all collected in the media hub.
Five things an owner takes back to the unit.
No unit economics, no marketing fund debate, no operations manual. This is the part underneath all of that, which is whether an owner still believes the thing they signed up for is worth another year of effort.
On what the franchise session is about
- The owner who is quietly having a bad year. They are in the room, they are not raising a hand, and they are the ones a general session can actually reach. Naming the hard stretch honestly is most of the work.
- Hiring and keeping people at unit level. Most owners are competing for the same crew as everyone else on that road and cannot win on pay. What they can win on is how it feels to work there, and that is specific and learnable.
- The owner as the leader, not just the operator. Almost every franchisee bought a business and inherited a leadership job they never trained for. One usable skill changes the whole unit.
- Why the system is worth belonging to. A convention is the one moment a year that answers this. Owners who leave feeling like part of something renew, refer, and open second units.
- One move, not a program. Every session closes on a single specific action, sized for somebody flying home to a business that ran without them for three days.
Eight ways franchise systems book him.
Brands usually pair the opening general session with a breakout, or add a separate session for the field team who support the owners.
Annual Convention Keynote
Opening or closing general session at a franchise convention or annual meeting.Regional Owner Meeting
Smaller regional and multi-market meetings where the room is close enough to have a real conversation.Awards Night
Franchisee of the year and annual recognition banquets. Sized to fit a program that is already full.Franchisee Advisory Council
Smaller working sessions with the owners who represent the system and carry the hardest conversations.Field & Franchise Business Consultant
The team that supports owners without any authority over them. One of the most underserved audiences in franchising.Franchisor Corporate Kickoff
The home office team at the start of the year. Support, development, and sales in one room.Take Back Your Time With AI
A live working session, not a lecture. Owners bring the hiring posts, follow-ups, and paperwork eating their week. Full details.Convention Breakouts
Repeatable concurrent sessions alongside a general session, usually on hiring, retention, or leadership.Built for systems of independent owners.
The framework holds across all of them. What changes is who is in the room and what they walk back into on Monday.
Home Services Brands
Restoration, cleaning, plumbing, HVAC, pest, lawn, and handyman systems with owner-operators and field crews.Food & Restaurant
Quick service, fast casual, and full service brands running annual conventions and regional owner meetings.Retail & Personal Services
Fitness, salon, education, and specialty retail franchise systems with high-turnover unit-level staffing.Staffing & Recruiting Franchises
Recruiting office franchise networks. This is the industry Chris runs companies in. See staffing industry speaking.Commercial & B2B
Janitorial, facilities, inspection, and business services systems selling to commercial accounts.Senior Care & Home Health
In-home care and senior services franchises. See senior care speaking.Multi-Unit Operators
Large multi-unit and multi-brand operators running their own internal leadership and general manager meetings.Franchisor Home Office
Corporate teams, field support organizations, and franchise development groups. See sales kickoff speaking.Franchise Associations
Franchise trade associations, supplier councils, and industry conferences serving multiple brands at once.Four movements. Ten principles.
Every session runs the same architecture as the book, which is what lets an owner general session and a field team session land as one message rather than two.
The Foundation
Ownership and time. What is inside your control when the market, the labor pool, and the costs are not.The Breakthrough
The comfort ceiling and the inner voice. The section a twenty-year owner goes quiet for.The Standard
Truth over praise, and the hidden gear. What a system does when somebody finally says the real thing out loud.The Purpose
Finishing, and leaving people better. The close, and the reason somebody signed the agreement in the first place.A copy for every owner in the system.
A convention gives a room an hour. A copy gives the whole system the same ten principles and the same language, which is how a message survives past the week the banners come down.
You Are Capable of More: A No-Excuses Guide to Becoming Your Best Self. An Amazon bestseller from Game Changer Publishing, with a foreword by Ben Newman.
Ten chapters across four movements, written plainly and short enough that somebody running a unit six days a week will actually finish it. The free companion toolkit includes a discussion guide sized for a staff meeting, a self-assessment, and a thirty day challenge. Nothing is gated behind an email address.
The feedback speaks for itself.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
Chris would be an incredible addition to any live audience. Each time he finds a unique way to connect on both a personal and professional level, keeping everyone engaged and attentive.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
Chris would be an incredible addition to any live audience. Each time he finds a unique way to connect on both a personal and professional level, keeping everyone engaged and attentive.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Events already on your calendar.
He built it from nothing too.
Chris Sund is the bestselling author of You Are Capable of More, a keynote speaker, and an executive leader.
As President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare, and Nebula, he helped grow Uniti Med 10x in revenue in two years and earn the number three ranking on the Inc. Regionals list among the fastest growing companies in the Midwest, while the organization earned Fortune Best Workplaces recognition and Great Place to Work certification three years running.
He is a father of three, based in Nebraska, a Maxwell Leadership Certified speaker, trainer, and coach, Vice President of the NATHO Board of Directors, and the founder of Amplify Speakers. He has never owned a franchise and will say so from the front. What he knows is the operator's side of it: hiring in a tight market, holding onto people who could leave, and building something from a standing start while the numbers were still frightening.
Details your team will ask for.
Convention teams and franchisors ask these.
He has not owned a franchise. Why does that work?
How much does a franchise keynote speaker cost?
Our owners are skeptical of motivational speakers. Will this work?
Can you speak to our field team as well?
Can he speak at our awards night?
Do you work with franchisee advisory councils?
Our owners struggle to hire. Does that get covered?
Can we get books for every attendee?
How do we start?
Other ways organizations book him.
Same framework, built for the specific room you are filling.