How Art Coley is an Inspiration in the Franchise Industry

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Art Coley has been interested in small company ownership since he was 15 years old when he launched his first burger shop in his hometown. This early-stage enterprise piqued his curiosity in the franchising business model. Art’s many professional activities have been oriented toward making small business ownership more accessible to entrepreneurs worldwide, regardless of their location.

In 2015, Art Coley became aware of an anomaly in the franchising industry. While many franchise concepts, from start-up to mature, may have a sound business model and initial success in unit growth, there appears to be a lack of structure and discipline in their ongoing franchise development processes and procedures, which appears to be slowing growth and even stalling the brand’s expansion. Art recognized this as his calling and founded CGI Franchise, whose mission is to close the revenue gap for CGI’s brand partners by providing their development teams with systems and processes that deliver thriving, successful franchise development and onboarding. Art has decades of experience driving system-wide revenues for Top 200 brands. The system is referred to as the Recruitment Operating System®.

While holding down two jobs at ICED, Art Coley also found the opportunity to return to his family restaurant, where he could increase sales by more than 600%. The restaurant was selected as one of the “Top 50” family-owned businesses in Texas by the Baylor University School of Economics. Coley was named “Business Man of the Year” by the Temple Chamber of Commerce to contribute to the local community business environment.

Art Coley joined AlphaGraphics in 2007 as the company’s head of worldwide development and was promoted to president and CEO in January 2012. During his time with the organization, he signed more than 300 franchise agreements. Previously, he worked with ICED, an alliance of franchised printing and copying centers, in various leadership roles, including director of public relations, president of one of the company’s brands, and executive vice-president of franchise growth.

Art Coley has been affected by several notable personalities throughout the years, including a meeting with Bud Hadfield, founder of the International Center for Entrepreneurial Development, in 1994. Bud inspired Art to understand better the franchise industry and its relationship with small business entrepreneurs. The rest, as they say, is history.

Art’s enthusiasm for working with franchise brands in the areas of development, recruiting, and onboarding has elevated him to the position of one of the industry’s best franchise development specialists. His home is in Temple, Texas, where he lives with Jean’s wife. They are the parents of three sons and one granddaughter, and two pets.