Speakers

Author of Franchise Your Business, The Guide to Employing the Greatest Growth Strategy Ever, and a franchise business consultant since 1985, Mr. Siebert founded the iFranchise Group in 1998 as an organization dedicated to developing long-term relationships with successful franchisor clientele.  Mr. Siebert has worked with hundreds of franchisors, from start-up operations to corporate giants.  He is an expert in evaluating companies for franchisability, structuring franchise offerings, and developing franchise programs. The strategic planning recommendations developed by Mr. Siebert have been instrumental in the growth and success of numerous national franchisors.

During his career as a franchise consultant, Mr. Siebert has personally assisted over 30 Fortune 2000 companies and over 500 start-up franchisors.  He travels extensively to meet with companies considering franchising, and regularly conducts workshops and seminars on franchising in cities around the world.

Mr. Siebert is a Partner and a Member of the Board of Directors of TopFire Media, a leading full-service, public relations and digital marketing agency specializing in franchise lead generation.  For more than three decades, Mr. Siebert has been actively involved in assisting U.S. franchisors in expanding abroad.  He has provided consulting services to franchisors in more than two dozen countries and his efforts have been responsible for the sale of numerous international licenses.  Mr. Siebert has also personally supervised the establishment of international consulting practices in Argentina, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Uruguay, Peru, and the Philippines.

Mr. Siebert has presented hundreds of speeches and seminars on franchising in cities around the globe.  He has been a featured speaker for the International Franchise Association, the International Franchise Expo, the International Franchise Association’s Legal Symposium, the American Bar Association, the American Association of Franchisees and Dealers, the Franchise Finance Conference, the National Restaurant Association, the Canadian Franchise Association, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and at major franchise events in Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, Peru, and Uruguay.  He has been a featured guest on business programs airing on CNN, Fox Business Network, and other programs both in the U.S. and abroad.

Mr. Siebert has also published well over 100 articles in dozens of business and professional periodicals, including The Franchise Handbook, Success, Venture, Entrepreneur (both in the US and in Japan), Entrepreneurial Edge, Commerce, Franchising World, Successful Franchising, Business Opportunities Journal, California Restaurateur, and Food Industry News.  Mr. Siebert is the featured columnist on “How to Franchise a Business” for Entrepreneur.com and is a regularly featured columnist in Franchise Times magazine and The Franchise Handbook.

Mr. Siebert is frequently called upon as an expert witness in franchise-related cases. He was on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Franchisees and Dealers (AAFD), on the Board of Advisors to Connections for Community Ownership, was named to the Franchise Times list of “20 To Watch” in franchising in 2002, and in 2001 was named the AAFD’s Supporting Member of the Year and received the AAFD Special Recognition Award in 2003.  In 2011, Siebert was the subject of a feature article in Restaurant Franchising entitled “The Franchise Growth Guru.”