Quality and consistent communication. One of the best things we did was create a weekly newsletter, which is now bi-weekly. People who care about success need to be involved and kept up to date. An increasing number of organizations are tapping into the global talent market and building semi or fully-remote workforces distributed far and wide. While harnessing diverse talent can be a boon for innovation, this operational model is not without its challenges. In this series we ask seasoned HR and operations professionals and leaders about what it takes to run a geographically dispersed organization. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Gregory Carafello. Gregory Carafello’s career began over 41 years ago as a copier sales trainee, and he rose through the ranks of Canon to become their youngest branch director at 26. He went on to found his own company with his wife, which the couple later sold after nearly two decades to focus on franchising. In July of 2003, Gregory joined Cartridge World as a Territory Master, bringing along his profound knowledge of the printing and franchising spaces. Today he serves as the company’s President and Co-founder of Executive Franchise Group, LLC. Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that? I am a true believer that we never fail, we only have learning experiences. The only time you fail is when you do not get off the mat to fight back. In other words, quitting. In owning any size business, you must be willing to embrace and look forward to the fight each day. It makes you sharper, work harder, and do better. The beauty of owning your own business is you can always outwork and outperform your competition. When I initially opened my first digital printing center in 1990, we printed business cards and failed to put the name of the individual on the card. He politely called and said there was a mistake, so I asked what it was because they looked beautiful, and he said that his name was not on them. I asked, jokingly, — “did you want your name on the card?” None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story? Without a doubt, you always need a mentor — no matter your age. That mentor will change over time though as you and your needs grow. I had 3–4 mentors who were keen on my development and in helping me create a sound foundation for long-term success. A note here is that you as the leader of your own firm or any organization, must- without question invest in your greatest asset- which is YOU. You are the leader of the team and need to re-invest annually in learning, sharing, meeting with your mentors, helping others grow, etc. “Live like you are going to die tomorrow; learn like you are going to live forever.” I am lucky to have great parents who instilled a hard work ethic, a brain to make good common-sense decisions, and see the world is your oyster — if you want to grab it. My father owned an insurance brokerage, so I saw him work on Sundays and Saturdays, get involved in the community, coach, etc. Today it is normal to work any hour; in the 60’s and 70’s it was not. Also, both sets of my grandparents owned businesses all their lives. Then, in my first job in New York City with Canon, Joe Picariello trained me to make business owner decisions even though I was an employee. It taught me to treat my area of the firm as my own business under Canon’s umbrella and keep my business model simple — similar to a franchise model. I am still very close with Joe, but we both are in different roles now. My brother Jack has a great level of business acumen, we speak daily about life, cars, wine, and all aspects of the business. He has no motivation except to share sound thoughts on business and life. I am close with Joe Mancuso, who created the CEO Clubs of America, now worldwide. He is an encyclopedia of business knowledge for small to medium-sized businesses. He is willing to share all aspects of knowledge, but more importantly, he brings business owners together to share and help each other. You are not on an island; the sooner you ask for help, input, and ideas, the better off you will be. I am 63 years old. I have done well, I have been down in the hardship area, and now I am back; yet I still look for people to share with and help grow. I also do my best to give back and share my experiences with all business owners, no matter what size or stage their business is at. Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life? I have a bunch of them I live by. My first is my grandmother’s saying- “You are dead a long time.” So basically, while you are on this earth, don’t squander your time and life. My godson moved to open the west coast division for a New Jersey-based firm, and a local told him not to wake up ten years from now at the pool and wonder what happened to his youth and time. “As a business owner- you can always outwork your competition.” The bigger the competition is, the easier it is because success has a way of eroding most people’s inner energy and drive to kill for success. I hope to never lose my drive to grow and succeed. “Cash flow outweighs profits many times.” It would be best if you had the cash flow to succeed. Profits are what I measure, but to be profitable and have no cash flow will cause issues in your business. “When in doubt, SELL something.” “High sales cures many issues.” “You are only as good as your last delivery/sale.” You and your team must have consistent quality, deliveries, invoicing, collections, etc. We lived on a motto in our digital printing business — “ 99% right is 100% wrong.” Do not push products out the door if it is almost good enough quality. You will be short-lived. The one ingrained in my body is: “Live like you are going to die tomorrow; learn like you are going to live forever.” Thinking back on your own career, what would you tell your younger self? I would drive home earlier to invest in my knowledge from the earliest days of my career. I have started seven firms. I also would have a diary as my life experience has a broad level of success and hardship while continuing to move forward. I would join executive or entrepreneurship groups and associations as soon as they would let me in to learn, learn, learn. I would also advise my younger self, if you think you are working hard, you are not — work harder and learn more — because you have more in the tank than you think.

August 23, 2023 // Franchising.com // NEW YORK CITY, NY - It’s a Renaissance era for Cartridge World America. During the company’s first in-person convention since the pandemic, excitement was in the air as Cartridge World President Greg Carafello opened with an inspiring line: “Today’s the day we start over.” Carafello has grown with Cartridge World for 20 years, before taking over as President of the company in December 2022. Ever since, Carafello has made it a mission to hone in on the brand’s core values of commitment, communication, passion, integrity, and – perhaps most importantly for a company largely based in technology – innovation. Cartridge World has shifted from a retail-centric business model to a contract-based B2B sales. With franchisee support and communication at the forefront, Carafello also launched biweekly newsletters and monthly company Zoom calls, helping provide transparency and instill a trust within the brand. “From our dedication to selling our unique products and services, to the best technological tools available, we’re committed to providing our franchise owners with the means and support they require to make their business successful,” Carafello said. “With several upgrades now in place, along with an open line of communication, I’m confident Cartridge World will flourish to its full potential.” Among some of the other revitalized tools introduced to franchise owners: a new website with a fresh look, new customer retention tools (CRM), as well as an updated point of sale (POS) system, all helping simplify the process for franchisees to run a successful business. The brand is providing the most cost-effective printing services for consumers by way of the brand’s signature No Cost Printer Program. “We understand some of the largest pain points of printing for most businesses is printer cost and maintenance,” Carafello said. “Our primary goal with the No Cost Printer Program is to take that stress out of the equation, so that our clients have one less thing to worry about while they concentrate on keeping their own businesses running.”

How one CEO is making sure his company's legacy technology stays fresh, relevant and profitable in a new age. Change is one of the scariest things humans face. When it comes to your business and the career you’ve dedicated your life to, that fear can loom particularly large. For any business, though, change is critical to be constantly evolving and adapting to the world around you. Remaining stagnant can put the business behind the times and leave you in the dust. This is something I realized when I took the helm as president of Cartridge World America in 2022, and I’ve been working steadfastly to reshape the Cartridge World brand—both internally and externally—ever since. My career began at Canon, where I became the youngest branch manager by the age of 26. Following my tenure there, my wife and I set out on a new venture to found our own company in the printing and copy industry, which we ran for nearly two decades before selling it to focus on my franchising endeavors.  In 2003, I joined the Cartridge World team as a Territory Master, and then became the company’s president in December 2022. At the time, I saw the company had great potential, but to get there, we would need a complete overhaul. Priority #1: Communication & Franchisee Support My first step to moving the brand forward: opening the line of communication with franchisees. It started with weekly newsletters and then moved to biweekly newsletters and regular, monthly Zoom calls to keep all franchisees up to date on company news. This allowed me to instill trust and transparency within the company, showing franchisees that I am here to serve and support their endeavors. As far as method of communicating with employees and franchisees—to be honest, I find email is so 1990s. We all receive hundreds of emails daily, some great, some good, and some are just wasting my time. If you think about it, you get a very important email at 9:00 am and by 9:05 you may have five more that are very important to you so the first one may never be seen again and it is only 9:30. We’ve always used Constant Contact for outbound marketing, but we began to use it to communicate with all of our franchisees with things we feel are very important. That gives us the ability to see who is opening and reading what we are sending out. I also use texting at a much greater pace. And don’t forget about the old-school ‘pick up the phone and call them’ or ‘get up off the chair and meet them, shake their hand, and have an eye-to-eye conversation with them.’ That is really still the best quality of communication. Priority #2: A New Sales Model Cartridge World was ahead of the remote work trend when we introduced the Executive Office Model roughly 10 years ago. It was a fully remote setup for franchisees; when they sign on, all they need is a computer, phone and a place to work from anywhere. They can work from home, a coffee shop or even an RV. It promotes remote work by providing franchisees flexibility for where they sell, where they work from and cheaper initial investment costs. By allowing this business model to flourish, we’ve made franchising opportunities even more exciting with the ease of accessibility. Many of our franchisees have shifted away from brick-and-mortar stores to the Executive Office Model, and their fixed costs have been significantly reduced while revenue has increased to ultimately put more money in their pockets. But to put that extra money in franchisees pockets, we made the shift to contract-based sales, a new automated system that warns Cartridge World when toner is running low or when there is a printer issue, creating zero wait time for the customer. As the traffic of clientele walking through Cartridge World’s doors began to slow, our solution was to mirror that same trend and put more focus on contract-based sales rather than our traditional retail-centric sales model. Contract sales provide every franchisee with a consistent cash flow while further emphasizing the B2B sales effort the company wants to focus on long-term. Priority #3: Embracing Technological Advancements For the past eight months, my team and I have aggressively implemented tools and programs that set Cartridge World America up for many years of innovative and measurable marketing, sales and communication tools. It began with bringing our website into 2023 and making it productive both for our clients to order from and for our franchisees to add to it. The new design has already increased traffic by 25% this year. We also have made it part of our mission to change our firm of 30-plus years to embrace the mindset that we are a “Sales and Marketing Technology” firm. That was a shock when we first announced it. However, we have continued to add tools and products that lead our owners in this direction so they can focus on what is most important: taking care of our customers and clients with a clear focus of attention. Customer-focused efforts are made possible with our new technologies. We have made investments and major improvements into how the client is affected by ease of ordering tools and systems, including a fully-automated point-of-sale (POS) system, which allows for a quick and seamless customer ordering experience through just the click of a button. We took a 20-plus-year system and turned it on its head so our customers and clients can order and pay with great ease, learn about our No Cost Printer Programs, and so on. Cartridge World has not stopped with the traditional tools to help franchisees, but we’ve encouraged the use of social media to create leads and business. The digital era is being fully embraced from top to bottom. These technological advancements provide the ability to scale growth with multi-location clients, leading to higher incomes under the new sales model. Additionally, Cartridge World’s simplified ordering system implemented for all clients follows through on the brand’s goal of capitalizing on “Automatic Forever Cadence Marketing.” Priority #4: Providing a Unique, Cost-Effective Product and Service Perhaps one of the biggest changes for Cartridge World in recent years: our signature No Cost Printer Program, which arrived in 2015. Through this program, clients are supplied with a free printer – complete with all required maintenance services – in exchange for simply purchasing their cartridges from Cartridge World. Since this program took effect, the brand has given away more than 10,000 printers. Prior to the introduction of this concept, Cartridge World had a 65% client retention rate. I knew the company needed to do something to differentiate itself from competition and get that number up. Today, there is a 99% retention rate through this program as customers no longer see a need to continuously shop around to fulfill their printing needs after just one or two purchases through Cartridge World. The No Cost Printer Program not only makes the job more efficient for Cartridge World, but also provides ease for the client. There is never a need to worry about running out of toner or stress about purchasing the perfect-but-expensive printer/copier; there’s no need to keep inventory or really give your printer a second thought. Cartridge World takes care of it all for the customer. Ease for franchisees combined with convenience for customers is all top-of-mind as I guide Cartridge World through this new era. With less than a year under my belt as the President of Cartridge World America – and 20 years with the company – my leadership style and fresh new vision for the brand is already being rewarded with a renewed energy across the company.

It’s a Renaissance era for Cartridge World America , the leading essential service provider for printing supplies and solutions. During the company’s first in-person convention since the pandemic, excitement was in the air as Cartridge World President Greg Carafello opened with an inspiring line: “Today’s the day we start over.” Carafello also unveiled Cartridge World is building an encouraging pipeline of growth that’s sparking a new energy amongst its franchisees. Carafello has grown with Cartridge World for 20 years, before taking over as President of the company in December 2022. Ever since, Carafello has made it a mission to hone in on the brand’s core values of commitment, communication, passion, integrity, and – perhaps most importantly for a company largely based in technology – innovation. “From our dedication to selling our unique products and services, to the best technological tools available, we’re committed to providing our franchise owners with the means and support they require to make their business successful,” Carafello said. “With several upgrades now in place, along with an open line of communication, I’m confident Cartridge World will grow and flourish to its full potential.” “We understand some of the largest pain points of printing for most businesses is printer cost and maintenance,” Carafello said. “Our primary goal with the No Cost Printer Program is to take that stress out of the equation, so that our clients have one less thing to worry about while they concentrate on keeping their own businesses running.” cartridgeworldusa.com/franchise

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