About Us

Franchise Elevator PR

Whether it’s attracting franchisees to invest in your new franchise opportunity or drive more customers to your existing locations, earned media coverage and positive social influencer buzz provides the critical jumpstart necessary to elevate the growth of emerging or smaller brands.

Only a specialized agency that genuinely understands the mindsets and unique needs of newer franchisors, founders and entrepreneurs can identify the right kind of stories to tell the media at the right time. Even more, the right agency for brands at these early stages of growth must have the media relations chops to land these critical, initial media stories, and build relationships with key local social influencers.

It’s precisely that kind of specialized expertise, results-driven mindset and more that has led Franchise Elevator PR to become the franchise industry’s go-to public relations agency for emerging or smaller franchise brands.

An Entrepreneurial Approach to Franchise Public Relations

When looking to grow their franchise systems and their customer base, Franchise Elevator PR clients quickly learn the value of having a firm that specializes in franchise PR – especially emerging franchise brand PR.

Immediately, our team digs in deep to learn the backstories, key messages and differentiators of the brands we work with. We understand the sense of urgency our clients have in generating results that will help them reach their franchise lead generation and consumer brand awareness objectives. Just like the entrepreneurs and founders we work with, we roll up our sleeves and jump right into execution mode.

Over the years, Franchise Elevator PR has perfected a proven method of launching accounts and implementing smart and effective PR strategies that drive the right qualified leads to franchise sales teams. The strategy typically involves a mix of business and consumer-facing angles and tactics – because you just never know who is reading, viewing or listening.

Our team centers on:

  • Delivering the right key messages to the right media outlets for the right audience at the right times.
  • Crafting media angles that not only suit the needs of the journalist, but also make sense for what the brand is trying to achieve.
  • Applying the same strategic techniques and principles to our franchise lead generation as our consumer PR and brand awareness programs.
  • Preparing founders, franchisees and other company spokespeople to put their best foot forward in interviews.
  • Carefully vetting social influencers to build relationships with in your local markets

A Mission Aligned with Entrepreneurism

Franchise Elevator PR’s mission goes beyond simply generating media coverage and influencer buzz for our franchise brand clients. Rather, we firmly believe our results achieve a higher purpose:

Franchise Elevator’s mission is to increase the number of small business owners and the success of entrepreneurs throughout North America.

Every time we secure a story or positive influencer pickup, it can and does lead to positive outcomes for the brands we work with. On the franchise lead generation side, the earned coverage is often the impetus that leads a prospect to visit their franchise opportunity and begin their franchise ownership journey. For consumers, the coverage on traditional or social media influences their buying behaviors and it leads them to our clients’ franchise locations.

With this mission, the Franchise Elevator staff understands their work is meaningful:

  • Exposure to one positive news story can and does lead someone to make the life-changing decision to invest in a franchise.
  • Even a single local TV segment or influencer post can attract multiple lifelong customers that make the difference between the success and failure of a business.
  • The stories they secure in the media helps educate the public about the franchising business model.

Overall, our staff is motivated because they know their PR and influencer relations results ultimately make a difference.

Leadership

Brad Fishman, CEO

Brad Fishman, CEO

As one of the most well-connected individuals in the franchise industry, Brad has spent more than 20 years helping franchise systems develop franchisee lead generation and consumer awareness campaigns that help them achieve their desired growth.

Sherri Fishman

Sherri Fishman, President

Sherri is a seasoned PR executive and agency owner who has devoted her life's work to providing custom franchise PR services. Since co-founding Fishman PR in 1991, Sherri has led a talented staff to grow Fishman PR into the nation's top franchise lead generation PR agency. Today, she spends the majority of her time in the trenches at Franchise Elevator PR, growing it into the best emerging brands’ PR firm in franchising.

Debra Vilchis, Partner

Debra Vilchis, Partner

With over 20 years’ experience in franchise PR/content marketing and a journalism background, Debra oversees direction of the agency’s integrated campaigns, leads our leaders and builds operational systems and best practices to keep Franchise Elevator PR on top of its game in franchising. She’s also our agency’s lead crisis communications specialist.

Zack Fishman

Zack Fishman, Chief Growth Officer

Since joining Franchise Elevator PR in 2019, Zack has been the face of Franchise Elevator PR’s business development efforts by leading the sales process, speaking at industry conferences and co-hosting his podcast, Modrn Business. Additionally, Zack is key contact for vendor relationships in both the franchise and public relations industries.

Cody

Cody O’Hara, Vice President

As the Vice President at Franchise Elevator PR, I take great pride in leading a team of talented publicists who work hard everyday to grow America’s emerging franchise brands. As your franchise business and consumer focused PR experts, we have all the resources and passion to help take your brand to the next level. With years under my belt in Franchise PR and in the TV news industry, I am excited to bring my insight to you and put your PR needs into action. My career has taken me out west, to the south, and even to Capitol Hill. I have covered and led strategy on every topic from politics, weather, business, and breaking news. On the personal side, I grew up in Kentucky, love my diverse neighborhood in Rogers Park on the north side of Chicago, and enjoy working alongside my Pomeranian and Standard Poodle.