When was franklin covey founded

Personally, I looked forward to getting those catalogs and always spent at least an hour with each. Around that same time, PaperDirect also was mailing catalogs. They had vignettes in them, too, but they were from PaperDirect product users — people who were employing the products you were looking at in the catalog. If your vignette was printed, you may have received lots of free PaperDirect stuff.

These, too, were cool catalogs. Back when PCs were new and we were all learning the myriad uses of them, PaperDirect was there to help with neat letterhead, trifolds, envelopes, postcards and more. Both of these catalogs were as cool as Duran Duran and big hair back then. They stood out because they had noteworthy editorial differences. Namely, the storytelling. There were, and still are, several companies in this business. But Franklin Planner surged ahead of the pack, primarily because of a move the company made in Until this time, Franklin was simply another player in the field.

Franklin Covey also offers leadership and organizational alignment consulting services for B-to-B customers. On the B-to-C side, there were Franklin Covey stores in malls around the country, until recently. The synergies between these companies was good to begin with and has only gotten better with time.

The momentum had already swung to Franklin Covey and remains that way due to the constant adding of pertinent content and services. Becoming and remaining a leader in a niche always means added value via content.

Look at American Girl. Pleasant Rowland certainly a visionary did a whole lot more than create dolls from various periods in American history.

She commissioned writers to develop stories for each girl and published historically accurate books to go along with the dolls, creating an experience rather than simply a toy. Four Takeaways 1. Franklin's management seminars and Day Planner achieved immediate market penetration. By , in fact, people who had heard about the Franklin System and wanted to try it provided a steady stream of walk-in traffic at Franklin's warehouse and catalog distribution facilities, demonstrating the company's growing reputation.

As a result, Smith and his co-managers decided to experiment by opening a local retail store that sold the Day Planner and a growing inventory of related Franklin merchandise. The initial success of the store prompted the company to initiate an aggressive outlet store program.

Staffed by trained Franklin Institute employees, the stores would be situated in high-traffic areas, such as malls, that would attract walk-in customers. Because many of the new customers would be unfamiliar with the Franklin System, the stores would also serve as a marketing tool for the company's seminars. Franklin Institute realized fast growth in its product sales during the early s.

However, its Franklin System training services remained the focus of its efforts during that period, only later giving way to the popularity of the Day Planner.

Although the company relied heavily on word-of-mouth advertising, it also marketed its seminars by means of a direct sales force to institutions and the general public. Attendees received a Franklin Planner along with instructional materials and order forms for new filler materials. Franklin often worked with institutional clients beforehand to create a tailored seminar that would emphasize the particular goals of that organization.

The company also offered those customers its Franklin Flex Training FFT service, whereby employees of those institutions were trained and certified to give video presentations of Franklin's seminars to in-house employees.

Franklin reached individuals and smaller companies through standardized public seminars that it offered in selected cities throughout the United States, and later in Hong Kong, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The s proved a perfect time for Franklin Institute to enlarge its fledgling time management company.

Indeed, as U. In addition to laying off millions of middle managers, U. Franklin offered a seemingly perfect solution to much of what ailed corporate America. Through one or a series of simple seminars, it would essentially show a management team or group of individuals how to achieve a higher set of goals in a shorter span of time.

Furthermore, it would boost their morale by helping them to focus on what they really wanted out of life. Franklin would even give them the tools they needed, such as the Day Planner, to make it happen. Most importantly, perhaps, sales of its Day Planner and related time management products had taken off.

Although much of the growth in product shipments was a result of increased first-time catalog and retail sales, Franklin was also starting to benefit from its strategy of cultivating customer loyalty.

While Franklin steadily attracted new customers through seminars, its old customers continued to purchase annual refills for their planners and to buy new Franklin offerings. The strong growth of Franklin Institute and some of its competitors during the s prompted many analysts to dismiss the popularity of time management systems as a corollary of the 'go-go' s.

According to the critics, daily planners and motivational management seminars were. Franklin rejected these appraisals outright, believing that its system offered a truly unique and effective method of giving greater meaning to the lives of its customers. Franklin's patrons supported their convictions; as the United States plunged into a deep recession during the late s and early s, Franklin's revenue and profit growth accelerated.

To augment sales from its profitable catalog and seminar divisions, Franklin decided to significantly expand its retail store operations in the early s.

It began opening stores, mostly in shopping malls, in areas that already had many Franklin clients, hoping that existing buyers would supplement new customer sales.

The strategy was extremely successful. In , Franklin Institute, Inc. The company also changed its name to Franklin Quest Co.

Franklin expected the acquisitions, which would be completed in , to enable it to penetrate a range of new markets and to bolster the presence of its existing divisions.

In addition to market diversification, Franklin's growth plan in the early s included a steady stream of new product introductions. The new merchandise would allow it to capitalize on a loyal base of customers already comfortable with purchasing its goods. One of its most successful entries was the pocket planner. Introduced in , the planner was designed to fit in a suit coat pocket or small purse while offering the same features as the popular Franklin Day Planner.

Similarly, the company brought out a line of decorative filler pages for its planners; these were highlighted in floral patterns to coincide with the seasons of the year. Perhaps Franklin's most notable new endeavor during the early s was its foray into personal information management PIM computer software. In late , Franklin unveiled its ASCEND software program, which was designed to be used in conjunction with the paper-based Day Planner or as a stand-alone time management system.

The program was offered in a complete package with time management guide books and audio cassette tapes. ASCEND represented Franklin's effort to capture a piece of the burgeoning market for computer-based time management devices, such as personal digital assistants hand-held electronic personal information devices.

Going into , Franklin Quest continued to expand into new markets and to increase sales of its existing products and seminars. Since , Franklin had trained more than one million people, including , during alone. The company had overseas sales offices in Taiwan, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia, and was targeting several new foreign markets.

Furthermore, during the first six months of Franklin opened 11 new retail stores and had developed plans to start several more before the end of the year. As if the company itself were a testament to the effectiveness of the Franklin System used by its managers, Franklin's sales and profit growth continued to accelerate into The three million people who were regularly using the Franklin System suggested a rich future for the company.

However, beginning in there were signs that some new strategies were necessary. For the first time in three years, there was a shortfall below the company's estimated earnings, sending Franklin Quest's stock into a 33 percent nosedive. The necessary growth in seminar attendance had begun to flatten out. To counteract the slowing down of growth in its seminar attendance, the company sought to increase its product line through additional acquisitions.

In , it purchased Productivity Plus, providers of planning materials for military customers, and the following year bought Premier Agendas, makers of student planners. Although the merger initially seemed very promising, the integration of the two firms proved much more difficult than the two parties had expected.