At BAM’s Q3 town hall, a franchisee asked the chief executive a yes-or-no question: “are we going to hear a mea culpa from Ammon today?” The answer’s first movement, quoted in the report on the exchange, declined to dwell on the past. The answer did not stop there. Past that point the CEO set down his title and delivered the apology, further than the company has gone anywhere else in public, and then, in the same answer, the counterweights: “almost 99%” of allegations dismissed, store performance placed “completely on the franchisee’s shoulders,” and apologies filed among the things a company can issue: “ultimately business is business.” The apology without its counterweights would overstate him; the counterweights without the apology would understate him. The rest of the answer is below.
PRIMARY SOURCEthe rest of the CEO’s answer at BAM’s Q3 franchise town hall, from “I’m going to speak to you as Ammon, not as CEO” to “I hope that you hear it loud and clear,” quoted below in fullPRIMARY SOURCEinside it: “You weren’t in the rooms, uh, where responses were being determined,” “some of you had to defend a company you don’t control,” “I allowed things to happen that we would not allow to happen again,” and “absolutely and deeply sorry for any of the decisions that have hurt individual franchisees or, uh, their stores”PRIMARY SOURCEalso inside it, after the apology: “almost 99%” of allegations dismissed as untrue, store performance placed “completely on the franchisee’s shoulders,” and apologies listed among the things a company can issue: “ultimately business is business”
The question, submitted by a franchisee and read aloud by the CEO himself, asked a yes-or-no: “are we going to hear a mea culpa from Ammon today?” The answer’s first movement declined to “dwell on things in the past” and diagnosed franchisees “stuck in an emotional kind of whirlpool.” The answer kept going. What follows is the rest of it, and the rest of it is the part that answers the question.
He said creating divisiveness had not been the intent of the meeting’s beginning. And then he set the title down.
“So for just a moment, I’m going to speak to you as Ammon, not as CEO, starting the strategic plan, which is what the, the, the first part of the meeting was all about. Um, so yeah, the last several months have been extraordinarily difficult for the company, um, for you franchisees and for me, and my family. Um, there have been things said and done to us that I believe were unfair, inaccurate, and at times deeply personal. Um, but there’s something that, um, you know, obviously needs to be acknowledged. Most of you didn’t create the situation. Okay. You didn’t enter into the underlying dispute. You didn’t break the franchise agreement and do things the wrong way. You didn’t make the decisions that led to it. You weren’t in the rooms, uh, where responses were being determined because of it. And yet, despite that many of you experienced the consequences anyways, and that sucks. Your employees had to, uh, uh, have customers ask questions that they didn’t, you know, they weren’t responsible for. Your stores received negative reviews that they weren’t responsible for. Some of you saw sales decline. Some of you had to defend a company you don’t control. And some of you, uh, uh, simpt, uh, excuse me, like just watched it unfolding, wondering whether or not the people leaving the company had it under control. So I can understand why that created anger, frustration, lost confidence in, in the departments. Um, but I also understand why hearing, you know, like some of us repeatedly explain why we believed, uh, we were right. Wasn’t necessarily what you needed from us. Okay. We definitely got things wrong. Um, there were times that we were too reactive. Um, there were times that we were too focused on correcting the record and not enough time acknowledging the effect that some of this was having. There were communications where our frustration showed through instead of empathy, right? Empathy is important. Um, and I’m not great at empathy guys. I’m not. Um, and so, uh, there were times that we created, uh, communications before we had enough clarity and certainty on some of the things that needed to be out there. Um, and so there were, there, there are definitely areas, um, where our growth, um, you know, like has, has made it so that dealing with a large enough scale of this, um, had, you know, like with as many individual franchisees, instead of, you know, like more multi-unit owners and some of these other areas that has created some, some difficulties for, for some of the franchisees. Um, so these, these can definitely be attributed to leadership issues and I’m the CEO. So I own my part in all of those decisions, um, and, and where the failures occurred that ultimately falls to me. So I, I absolutely can say that I allowed things to happen that we would not allow to happen again in, in, in a different situation. So for that, I am, I am absolutely and deeply sorry for any of the decisions that have hurt individual franchisees or, uh, their stores. Um, now with that then being the case, that doesn’t mean that every allegation made about them was true. Almost 99% of them aren’t. It does not mean that every criticism was fair. It doesn’t mean that every negative thing that’s happened to a store over the last several months was caused by the situation. Okay. It wasn’t caused by corporate either. Right. But I don’t need every accusation to be true in order to just acknowledge that mistakes were made. And I don’t need to agree with every critic in order to learn from what has happened. Okay. I think that’s, you know, like maybe something that I haven’t really articulated well. Um, I’ll also say that, you know, guess what? This is my first time being a franchisor, the CEO of a franchisor with over 300 franchisees. I’m, uh, I’m figuring things out, you know, like from, from being a franchisor of over 300 franchisees. Um, if any of you have ever been in that situation, I welcome your, your, your feedback on how to address this situation. Um, but you know, one of the things that we definitely are learning to do better is how to communicate, um, better and, uh, you know, differently through crises that, that we experience. Um, facts do matter, but so does empathy. And so we’re going to continue to try and be better at some of those things. Um, but one of the major things that we have identified is that we need a stronger system underneath us. Um, we need stronger and more resilient franchisees, uh, for, for a lot of different things that we’re doing. And so we’re, we’re working on tools and resources to help strengthen our franchisees, our existing franchisees, as well as the new incoming franchisees as they come into the system. Um, so you’re going to continue to see operational changes, governance, you know, like additional technology from Mike and his team, additional marketing from, from Katelyn and, um, and her team. Um, but, but we do know that trust comes as, as the results start trickling in. Um, and I, I understand that and I accept that, you know, like, but I can’t, I can’t control the emotional reactions that individuals have. I can’t control the, um, the disconnect from logic. I can’t control the, um, the, the store performance when, you know, like the things that we tell you will help and you refuse to do them. Those things I can’t control. That’s, that’s completely on the franchisee’s shoulders. Um, and so we can, we can give to you the tools and resources we can, we can make the adjustments. We can, we can issue apologies. We can, we can do all sorts of things, but ultimately business is business. And, um, the things that I’ve learned, uh, at, at being in business for a long time is that things are never as, as bad as they seem, but they’re never as good as they seem either. And so as we continue to work together hand in hand, I think that we will, we will get through this together. Some people don’t have it in them. Some people, um, you know, like they, they are, are taxed, they’re weary and they, they, they need to get out. And I understand that. And we’re working on, on things to help them in that capacity. Um, but, but we’re all working hard and, and for the good of the brand and for those franchisees who do have what it takes to make this, uh, uh, a great business for them and, and a vehicle for, for growth and development for, for their, their individual businesses. So, uh, for anybody who doesn’t feel like they’ve heard it enough already, because I feel like we’ve said it and I hope that this is not coming off, uh, you know, like in a, in a bad way, but for those who do not feel like they’ve heard it enough or that they’ve heard it at all. I am sorry that any of you have, have dealt with this. I’m sorry that you’ve had to, um, experience, uh, the, the darker side of business, the hard side of business. I’m sorry that, that things that we have done either didn’t correct it fast enough or, or weren’t the right move to make. So if you, if you need to hear that, I hope that you hear it loud and clear.”
Read the comfort first, because of what each sentence concedes. Every absolution names a completed act: the situation was created. The underlying dispute was entered. The franchise agreement was broken. Decisions were made that led to it. And there were rooms “where responses were being determined.” The room of franchisees is consoled by subtraction: you did none of this. Whoever entered, broke, decided, and determined is everyone the comfort does not cover. And the subtraction stands only until the answer itself resolves it: “I’m the CEO. So I own my part in all of those decisions.” By elimination, and then by admission, the decisions the room did not make have an owner, and both halves of the proof are his.
One clause in the list settles a separate argument this site has been documenting for months. The company’s standing answer to findings about its stores is that each is independently owned and operated, even as one login runs every store’s website and stores are required to buy from corporate. Consoling his franchisees, the CEO said it himself: some of you had to defend “a company you don’t control.” No page of this site has put it more plainly than he did.
Then the confession, and it is not small. “These can definitely be attributed to leadership issues and I’m the CEO. So I own my part in all of those decisions,” and “where the failures occurred that ultimately falls to me.” Then the sentence that goes further than anything else the company has produced on this record: “I allowed things to happen that we would not allow to happen again.” First person. No “if.” A statement against interest, of the kind this record almost never contains. The apology it carries is addressed with precision: “deeply sorry for any of the decisions that have hurt individual franchisees or, uh, their stores.” Franchisees, and their stores. Nothing in the answer extends it past the edge of the system: not to the collector whose consigned sets the company’s own officers described holding, not to the settled party its executives discussed in the same meeting, not to customers. He was answering a franchisee’s question, so franchisees are the natural audience. The scope is still the fact: the strongest apology the company has given was given inside the family, about the family, to the family.
The apology is still in the air when the answer starts rebalancing. “That doesn’t mean that every allegation made about them was true. Almost 99% of them aren’t.” A number from nowhere, attached to no list of allegations and no source, delivered inside an apology. Then the cause is returned to sender: “It wasn’t caused by corporate either.” Then the credentials: “guess what? This is my first time being a franchisor.” And then the transfer, the longest sustained passage in the back half of the answer: “I can’t control the emotional reactions that individuals have. I can’t control the, um, the disconnect from logic. I can’t control the, um, the, the store performance when, you know, like the things that we tell you will help and you refuse to do them. Those things I can’t control. That’s, that’s completely on the franchisee’s shoulders.”
Hold that against the meeting’s own arithmetic. The company that told a questioner the cause of its stores’ twenty-percent losses was “harder to establish” establishes it here without difficulty: wherever “the things that we tell you will help” go undone, the cause is the franchisee. The diagnosis the first movement offered, an “emotional kind of whirlpool,” comes back enlarged: now the emotions, the “disconnect from logic,” and the store performance itself sit on the franchisee’s shoulders. And then the answer files the thing it just did: “we can, we can give to you the tools and resources we can, we can make the adjustments. We can, we can issue apologies. We can, we can do all sorts of things, but ultimately business is business.” The largest apology in the company’s record, categorized by its own author in the same answer: a thing a company can issue, listed between the adjustments and the all sorts of things. The count is the day’s running theme. Earlier in the same meeting, answering a different question, he had said “I feel like I’ve apologized a lot, so I didn’t go into it as much,” and the closing apology is offered to “anybody who doesn’t feel like they’ve heard it enough already, because I feel like we’ve said it.” The apologies are counted by their giver, then shelved by him, twice in one meeting.
| Given, in the answer | In the same answer |
|---|---|
| “I am, I am absolutely and deeply sorry for any of the decisions that have hurt individual franchisees or, uh, their stores.” | “That doesn’t mean that every allegation made about them was true. Almost 99% of them aren’t.” |
| “I own my part in all of those decisions.” | “It wasn’t caused by corporate either.” |
| “I allowed things to happen that we would not allow to happen again.” | “I can’t control the emotional reactions that individuals have.” |
| “We definitely got things wrong.” | “That’s, that’s completely on the franchisee’s shoulders.” |
| “I hope that you hear it loud and clear.” | “We can, we can issue apologies. We can, we can do all sorts of things, but ultimately business is business.” |
Both columns are one continuous answer, quoted verbatim, each row’s left given before its right was said. The reader holds what the room held: all of it, in order.
The answer closes with that second apology, for “the darker side of business, the hard side of business,” and for things done that “didn’t correct it fast enough or, or weren’t the right move to make.” Both apologies are real, and both are printed here whole. Between the first and the second sit the 99 percent, the shoulders, and the shelf. And near the end, a door: “Some people don’t have it in them… they need to get out. And I understand that. And we’re working on, on things to help them in that capacity.” What the record already shows about the path out of this system, its franchisees have pleaded in eight steps, and the machine behind the door, described in the same meeting, is its own report.
The fair reading, and its limit. The apology is real, personal, and further than the company has gone anywhere else in public: a chief executive owning “leadership issues,” failures that “ultimately” fall to him, and things he “allowed… to happen,” twice, unprompted the second time, and closing “loud and clear.” The admission of inexperience is candor few executives offer. A leader can sincerely apologize and still defend his company against what he believes is false; “almost 99%” is his stated belief about the allegations, not a concession of the remaining one percent, and a franchisee’s question naturally draws a franchisee-scoped answer. The narrow points that remain the record’s: the same answer that gives the apology assigns store performance to franchisee refusal, prices the allegations at one percent true without naming one, and shelves apologies among the things a company can issue, with “business is business” standing at the end of the list.
Sources. BAM’s Q3 franchise town hall, primary source: the remainder of the CEO’s answer to the submitted mea-culpa question, quoted verbatim and whole above, one marked elision. The question, and the answer’s first movement, are at the report on the exchange. Context at the links: the company’s definition of transparency, the causality answer, the survey, the independence record, the one-login record, the required-purchases record, the settlement-week apology, and the eight-step sequence.
The BAM Map is independent reporting on matters of public concern. Nothing here is a finding of any person’s guilt; every official named is presumed to have acted lawfully. Sources are linked so readers can check the record. · Home · Map · The law · Bodycam