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She Unlocked a $50M Franchise Playbook
An interview with Felicia Reeves at Empower Brands
Bryan Shankman
September 02, 2025
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Workbench, a resource-rich weekly newsletter and podcast for home services entrepreneurs.
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This week, I sat down with Felicia Reeves, CMO of Empower Brands—a powerhouse multi-brand franchise family covering everything from roofing and insulation to lawn care and office cleaning. Felicia uniquely understands local business ownership from the inside out, having started as a franchisee herself.
Our conversation covered actionable ways owners can stand out locally, blend digital and analog marketing, leverage AI effectively, and move the needle on lead conversion.
Whether you're an aspiring operator or scaling your second location, Felicia delivers playbooks and insights you can act on right now.
The 8 Key Takeaways
Below are the most essential insights from my conversation that you can apply to your home services business today.
1. Understanding the Business from All Sides
Felicia’s journey began as a franchisee herself before joining Empower Brands at the C-suite level. This hands-on experience lets her connect strategically with local owners and create growth frameworks that actually work in the field. Her rapid onboarding focused on deeply understanding franchisees’ challenges before building anything new.
“I actually started my career journey as a franchisee myself. Those learnings have really shaped how we support our franchisees today and what we care about most to drive growth. When I joined Empower, my first 100 days were all about discovery: listening, learning, and building relationships on the ground. Franchising is most successful when it's collaborative—and that trust-building is key.”
2. Frameworks With Flexibility
One common struggle for franchise systems is balancing proven playbooks with the autonomy to let operators own their story on the ground. Felicia’s approach is to provide strong frameworks and best practices, but still give owners enough room to keep things local and authentic. This keeps adoption high and outreach genuine—critical for lasting results in any market.
“It's about creating a framework and having freedom within that framework. We share best practices and playbooks that drive growth, but we never want to handcuff franchisees to a set message. Authenticity is huge—if they can make it their own and keep it consistent, it works and connects with their customers.”
3. Get Local, Stay Local
With digital marketing always changing—and customer trust at an all-time premium—Felicia is a champion of local ground game. From networking and building a ‘brand behind the brand’ to diversifying the marketing mix beyond just paid digital, she urges franchisees to build real local connections for outsized returns.
“Especially in home services, it's all about the ground game right now. Consumers are fatigued, and the best way to stand out is through authentic presence in local markets. That means developing your personal brand, diversifying your funnel, and building relationships for trust and recognition—especially when your budget isn’t huge.”
4. Old-School Tactics Still Crush
While many owners focus on digital, Felicia sees franchisees winning by mixing in old-school or guerrilla tactics like canvassing and networking. What matters most is doing what fits the owner’s style and doubling down with consistency—whether that’s personalized videos on social or face-to-face events, the goal is real community connection.
“It always comes back to what the franchisee is most comfortable with. We have owners crushing it with organic social and ‘talking head’ videos, others debunking myths in their service, and some leaning into canvassing or hyper-targeted direct mail. Those grassroots tactics are just as powerful—especially for building recognition and trust out of the gate.”
5. Data Matters—But Don’t Get Paralyzed
She’s a performance marketer who loves numbers, but Felicia warns against getting so obsessed with tracking every KPI that you stop taking action. Picking the right things to measure—especially at the local level—keeps growth on track and avoids analysis paralysis.
“Data is key, but you can definitely over-index. Sometimes you’re so busy analyzing the numbers that you’re not actually moving the strategy forward. Find the KPIs that really matter for your stage—like whether you’re answering calls, booking jobs, and converting leads. At the end of the day, not all KPIs are created equal.”
6. Performance Channels That Make a Difference
The best digital channels aren’t the same for every business. Felicia stresses matching your investments to your digital maturity: Google Local Service Ads are a game-changer when profiles are ready; organic SEO and retargeting work for others. Having a system that can answer, manage, and actually close leads is more important than just cranking up spend.
“Google Local Service Ads have been a blessing in the industry, but if you don’t have enough five-star reviews, it’s not the place to start. Your digital footprint has to match your ambitions—make sure your website, reviews, and funnel are dialed in, and that you can answer and close those leads before adding more spend.”
7. The Real Opportunity With AI
AI is everywhere, but Felicia believes it should boost efficiency—not become a shiny distraction. Empower is letting franchisees automate social, integrate chat widgets, and improve lead handling, but is careful to keep authentic brand voice and not let technology mask deeper business issues.
"AI is appropriately rated, but most underutilized on the personal side. In business, it’s incredible for driving efficiency—call centers, social, CRM—but it can’t be a shiny object or a Band-Aid for bigger problems. The challenge now is: how do we automate while keeping each franchisee’s real voice and connection with the customer?”
8. KPIs That Actually Matter
For all the talk about lead generation, Felicia’s favorite KPIs are around answering, booking, and converting. Most owners don’t need more leads—they need to do more with the ones they already have, improving funnel flow, speed, and targeting.
“Everyone wants more leads, but what matters is lead quality and what happens after the call. Are you answering? Are you booking? How fast do jobs move through the funnel? Usually—it’s not about needing more leads. It’s about optimizing how you convert them, improve average ticket, and maximize ROI.”
Looking Ahead
Empower Brands is scaling by doubling down on what works, expanding service lines, and giving franchisees data and support to dominate local markets—especially in commercial growth. Felicia’s focus is clear: practical systems, equity in the field, and helping owners thrive.
"Right now it’s about scaling what works and helping franchisees expand their offerings. We’re focusing on making their service lines stronger, helping them break into new markets, and using the right data to truly optimize field performance and growth. There’s a ton of opportunity, especially for commercial, and we want to make sure we set everyone up for success the first time.”
Wow! You made it to the end; thanks for sticking with us.
The full interview is available on YouTube below, Spotify here, and Apple Podcasts here.