Faculty spotlight: Pam Klaus
Every year since 2009, Missouri Western has given seniors in the Craig School of Business a chance at owning a franchise right after graduation. The franchise program gives students the opportunity to jump right into the business world with a little bit more stability and support than simply owning your own business. The director of that program is Pam Klaus.
“It’s a senior level course. It’s called Applied Business Ownership,” Klaus explains. “It goes through everything that you’ve learned in your management classes, your finance classes, and accounting. You can take that and apply it to a real setting. We study a franchise because if we’re going to provide support after you’re awarded the store, a franchise is our best opportunity for success. They already have training programs in place as well as the support system and brand recognition. We awarded our first store back in 2009 and have a great track record.”
Before Klaus was franchise director, she was a business owner herself. After years of being self-employed, she decided she wanted to try something new. When this opportunity came along, Klaus compared it to a dream job.
“I actually owned a business, so entrepreneurship has always been kind of in my blood,” Klaus stated. “I grew up with a family that were small business owners in a small town, so it’s always just been a part of me. However, I was kind of ready to transition out of it. The number one reason is I love working with young people. I didn’t even know. I started doing this, but I was just kind of restless in my consulting job. I had interviews in quite a few places. Nothing really seemed like a good bet, and when I saw this job description, I felt like if I were to pick a job, leave what I’m doing, leave the freedom of being self employed, this would be my dream job. Really, I interviewed, and it was just the stars all aligned. I guess.”
Even though the course is only offered in the spring, the director works year long to prepare. She tries to recruit kids at the high school level to show that when they become seniors, they could compete for their own business.
“I’ll share a little bit about Hayden Globulus,” Klaus said. “He was awarded a store just this last spring. We graduated in May; we had the competition in June, and we transferred ownership of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels to him in July. It’s a very quick. I was in one of his high school classes. He was a central grad. At some point at Central, I was there. He heard that I visit the business classes, and he was on the edge of his seat so excited. That’s why he came to Missouri Western. His whole college career he knew he was going to take this class and compete, and he won. It’s because it’s a good recruiting tool. There’s nothing like this anywhere in the country that we award something to a graduate, so we’re very unique from that aspect.”
To buy a franchise is a very long and difficult process. That’s why most of the owners are older and not straight out of college. Klaus works diligently to build relationships with these businesses so that they aren’t worried about having such a young owner.
“A really big part of my job is building those relationships with the franchises,” Klaus explained. “Normally, a typical franchise will say that you need to have about $300,000 worth of net worth. College graduates just don’t have that type of money. Working with the franchise is getting them to buy in so that they’ll say we’re going to accept one of your graduates as a franchisee even though they don’t have any net worth, even though they don’t have life experience, even though they don’t have all of these things. The other piece of it is getting a bank to buy into that too. Even though they’re awarded and they win, it is a loan that they pay back. They actually signed documents and said you own this business, so you’re personally responsible for it. A big part of it is working with those with the financial institution. We partnered with Valley Bank, and they’ve been a great partner for the last several years.”
Not everyone who takes the course has to compete for the franchise. Even if you don’t win, there’s still a lot to be learned from the course. Since it is only offered in the springtime, alumni are also welcomed back to participate.
“This class is like really none other that we have because experts in their field come in and talk to the students,” Klaus said. “Just as an example, I have an attorney come in to talk about what it’s like to set up an LLC if you’re going to own a business. You’re probably going to need to lease a space. What does it look like? What do you need to look for in a lease? There are 150 pages. If you are truly going to go into business, you need to be able to understand how to manage those documents because it is time consuming and there’s a lot of jargon in there that we don’t know. We don’t talk like that. A lot of our store owners will come in either via Zoom or in person and talk. Even though we study a franchise, all the tools, all the resources, all the networking, the people that they need, is transferable to another business. So, we want to start. I don’t want to compete, because I’m not ready for it. For whatever reason, the timings are not right. But, I’m thinking maybe five years down the road. That’s my goal. You can transfer everything that you get in this class to any type of business because once you understand what to research, what you’re looking for, how to do it, you can apply it to whatever business that you want.”
Missouri Western offers an opportunity unlike any other. If students chose to compete they could win their own franchise right out of college. If they choose not to compete, they still have the opportunity to learn many skills that will help them in the future. Pam Klaus takes a lot of pride in the program and wants everyone to know it.
