Josh Lyon has been building ScentHound as their COO from seven units to 157 - and he's not slowing down. In this conversation, he gets into what it actually takes to scale a franchise brand with operational discipline intact: the team transitions nobody talks about, the franchisee adoption gap that compounds every time you add complexity, and why simplicity isn't a nice-to-have - it's the differentiator that separates the brands that win from the ones that don't.
In this episode:
- Building and rebuilding your team through three inflection points
- Why franchisees need to be treated like owners, not employees — and what changes when you do
- How ScentHound maps the five-stage journey of franchisees, team members, and customers to create simplicity at every level
Guest: Josh Lyon, Chief Operating Officer, ScentHound
Host: Katherine LeBlanc, Fractional CMO | Apollo CMO
Are you a franchise brand leader working on a growth challenge? Katherine works with franchise brands as a Fractional CMO. Learn more at apollocmo.com
What is Franchise Spotlight with Katherine LeBlanc?
Conversations with the leaders who are actually building franchising - from the executive suite to the field. Each season explores what success looks like right now, what franchise leaders should be paying attention to, and how the best brands are delivering real returns for their franchisees. Because at the end of the day, franchisee profitability isn't just a metric; it's the whole point.
Your host, Katherine LeBlanc, brings 13 years inside franchise systems, having led marketing across six brands spanning food, wellness, beauty, and experience. She's been in the room where these decisions get made. These conversations reflect that: direct, practitioner-level, and built for franchise leaders who don't have time for surface-level takes.