If you’ve been around the franchise world long enough, you know the feeling:
You fly home from a big franchise event with a bag full of swag, a notebook full of half-legible ideas, and not a lot that actually changes how your system runs.
I’ve talked to too many brands who have done that dance more times than they care to admit.
That’s exactly why we built the Service Franchise Summit differently in 2025—and why I’m even more excited about the 2026 edition, happening June 24–26, 2026 in Sundance, Utah.
Mark your conference calendar for 3 days designed to function like a focused think-tank for your brand. 100% of attendees that filled out our after event survey said they’d be back and that they’d tell their friends about us.
Think of SFS as the Franchise event version of spring training: focused reps, honest feedback, and a clear plan before you step back on the field.
Why We’re Doubling Down on the Service Franchise Summit in 2026
The world you’re leading in is getting noisier and more complex by the month:
- Lead and labor costs are rising
- Technology is evolving faster than most teams can implement it
- Franchisees expect more support, more clarity, and more proof that the playbook actually works
- And your budgets can’t keep up with the spend required to do it all
In that environment, a generic franchise event full of vendor pitches and surface-level panels just doesn’t cut it.
Service Franchise Summit 2026 is intentionally built for:
- Home services, health, fitness, pet, education, and other B2B service-based brands
- CEOs, founders, CMOs, COOs, and operations leaders who live in the reality of field performance, not just spreadsheets
And because we’re co-hosting this summit with our friends at FranchiseFilming again, you can expect the same mix of strategy, story, and execution that made 2025 such a hit.
What Makes This Franchise Event Different (For Real)
Let me give you the “no-fluff brochure” version.
Most events are built around manicured and sterile content. The Service Franchise Summit is built around vulnerability and traction.
From the first keynote to the last conversation on the mountain, everything is geared toward answering 3 questions for your brand:
- Where are we stuck right now?
- What’s the shortest path to traction in the next 90 days?
- Who do we need around us to keep that momentum going?
To get there, we’ve structured the summit around three big levers that came out of year one.
1. Operator-Tested Strategies
At Sundance, you’ll be listening and learning from leaders who are in it with you. They’ll share their failures and what they learned from them, rather than just beating their chests on stage celebrating their awesomeness.
We’ll be digging into questions like:
- How do you lower CAC when marketing costs are exploding?
- What’s actually driving franchisee success in service-based brands?
- Which tech is streamlining ops vs. slowing your team down?
- How do you shift behaviors with low-performing owners without burning bridges?
In other words: less “thought leadership,” more “here’s what we tried, here’s what worked, here’s what blew up.”
Those include speed-to-lead and the compounding impact of better response times, automation that actually gets used in the field and data visibility that helps franchisors coach.
2. Time to Think And Challenge Assumptions
One of the best comparisons I’ve heard for the summit came from an attendee who said:
“It felt like combining a board retreat, a mastermind, and a mountain trip without wasting time on the stuff that doesn’t matter.”
That’s exactly the point.
At this franchise event, we’re intentionally creating space for questions you rarely get time to sit with.
Mornings are built for deep work, with small-group mastermind sessions, brand challenge breakouts and tactical conversations about ops, marketing, and tech
In the afternoon, we take those conversations outside with zip-lining, hiking, fly fishing or mountain biking—depending on your appetite for adventure.
Here’s what I’ve learned hiking in the Utah mountains with franchisors: once you get past the first mile of small talk, the real conversations finally show up.
That blend of focus and fresh air is a big reason the Service Franchise Summit feels so different. The environment does half the coaching for us.
3. A 90-Day Plan You’ll Actually Use
If all you leave with is a notebook of inspirational quotes, we’ve failed.
You’ll walk out of Sundance with a concrete 90-day roadmap, built while the ideas are still fresh and pressure-tested by peers.
Expect to leave with:
- 3–5 specific goals tied to operations, marketing, and tech
- Prioritized initiatives based on real constraints—budget, bandwidth, and franchisee readiness
- Clear owners and timelines, so your plan doesn’t die in somebody’s inbox
- A support network of other leaders you’ll keep leaning on long after the summit
Who This Franchise Event Is Really For
Service Franchise Summit 2026 is intentionally small and high-impact. Seats are limited on purpose.
You’ll get the most from this if you’re:
- A CEO or founder shaping system-wide direction
- A COO or operations executive working to align field support and performance
- A CMO or marketing leader responsible for demand gen and brand consistency
- A strategic partner invested in growing service-based franchise systems
If your day-to-day looks like:
- Wrestling with lead flow and response times
- Trying to improve same-store sales without overwhelming franchisees
- Cleaning up messy tech stacks and duplicate tools
- Getting pulled between strategic work and firefighting
Then this is your kind of room.
If you’re mainly coming to sell to franchisors or collect business cards, this probably isn’t your franchise event.
The energy here is about solving problems together, not working the floor, but its paired with unforgettable networking experiences outside, which produce relationships that will last a lifetime.
Why Sundance, Utah?
We chose Sundance Resort in Utah for a reason.
It’s about an hour from Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), tucked into the Wasatch Mountains, and built for exactly the kind of work we’re doing together: focused, unplugged, and intentional.
Your registration will include:
- All sessions and mastermind discussions
- Group adventures and networking activities
- All meals and non-alcoholic beverages
You’re covered from the first coffee to the last conversation of the night.
Travel and hotel are on you, but we’ll be sharing a heavily discounted room block at Sundance for registered attendees.
How to Make the Most of This Franchise Event
If you decide to join us, here’s my simple playbook to get maximum ROI from the summit:
- Bring one hairy problem.
Show up with a clear challenge: maybe it’s franchisee adoption of your Franchise CRM, a broken lead follow-up process, or a bottleneck in field support. We’ll help you put it on the table and work it.
- Bring your real numbers.
You don’t have to share everything, but the more honest you are about where you’re winning and where you’re not, the more the SFS can help.
- Bring at least one teammate if you can.
A founder + CMO or COO combo tends to get huge value. You hear the same content, filter it through different lenses, and can execute faster when you get home.
- Leave your “conference persona” at the door.
The best conversations happen when we’re not trying to impress each other. We’re trying to improve each other.
- Block time after the event.
Give yourself a day post-summit to finalize your 90-day plan and communicate it to your team while the energy is still high.
Why I’m Personally Fired Up About 2026
After the 2025 summit, I heard a version of the same comment over and over:
“This is the first franchise event where I felt like I could exhale, be honest about what’s not working, and still leave more confident.”
That’s the bar for 2026.
We’re keeping what worked—operator-led sessions, curated masterminds, outdoor connection—and tightening everything around one goal:
Help you make better, faster decisions that compound over the next 90 days and beyond.
If franchise growth is a real priority for you in 2026, I’d love to see you at Sundance.
Ready to Join the Service Franchise Summit?
Here’s your next step:
- Lock in your spot. Early bird registration for Service Franchise Summit 2026 is open now, and seats are intentionally limited to keep this FRANCHISE EVENT high-impact.
- Share it with your right-hand leader or friends. If you’ve got a COO, CMO, or head of operations who lives in the details, bring them into the conversation early. Think of other leaders you’d like working in your corner, and invite them to join you.
- Start your “messy list.” Between now and June, keep a running list of issues, opportunities, and “someday” ideas you want to pressure-test at the summit.
You can grab your early bird rate and get all the details on logistics, agenda updates, and speakers on the official event site.
And if you want to see how ClientTether helps franchisors turn those 90-day plans into reality—through faster lead response, automation, and real-time reporting—our team’s always up for a conversation before or after the event.
Hope to see you on the mountain.
