This is the third blog in a 4-part series designed to help companies selling into the restaurant industry better understand, classify, and strategically approach go-to-market efforts for franchised brands. Read part one here and part two here.

In the first two parts of this series, we explored the complexities of selling into franchise-heavy brands and introduced the first step—assessing Strategic Fit and Targetability—to identify which brands align with your goals and are realistically within reach.

Identifying strategic and targetable brands is only the beginning. The next step, justification, ensures you’re directing resources where they’ll deliver high returns. Shifting to justification requires assessing each brand’s potential for Acquisition and Expansion to avoid wasted efforts and maximize impact. By breaking down each brand’s potential, you’ll focus resources with precision and build a Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy that aligns with your goals.

STAR and STEP are structured frameworks for aligning account targeting and investment. With STAR for high-revenue potential brands and STEP for priority expansion, this approach ensures a data-driven, resource-efficient strategy.. This structured, repeatable process equips you to document your approach, make informed decisions about which brands to pursue, and, more importantly, determine the best strategies for engaging them.

In this next step, we’ll examine Acquisition and Expansion potential in-depth, setting you up to engage brands that matter most, when it matters most.

Assessing acquisition potential for “STAR” brands

Before diving into how you should engage with a franchise-heavy brand, it’s critical to clarify what we mean by acquisition.

Too often, companies label any sale after the initial closed-won opportunity as an “expansion” deal, aligning with a “land-and-expand” mentality that aims for broad brand adoption. This approach, however, can backfire. It obscures metrics like time-to-majority adoption (the time it takes to achieve substantial buy-in of a first product across most or all locations) and creates ambiguity around when acquisition truly ends and expansion begins—a pitfall we refer to as the Expansion Trap (explored in more detail in section 2).

When expansion is loosely defined, new franchisees often get treated as existing accounts. In reality, new franchisees represent unique acquisition opportunities that demand focused, strategic attention. Each new franchisee should be approached as acquisition to align efforts with revenue potential and prioritize effectively.

It’s also important to note that these franchisees often need to be “sold,” meaning your team must clearly communicate value and ROI. Any assumptions that existing franchisees have passed along your value proposition, or that new franchisees will simply “get it,” brings us back to the Aspiration Trap discussed in the second part of this series.

Remember, defining acquisition at this stage doesn’t mean it’s time to assign account ownership (that will come in the next blog). Here, our focus is on how to think about targeting these brands rather than who will execute that strategy.

For each strategic and targetable brand where acquisition is feasible, if potential revenue justifies outbounding, it should be tagged as a STAR account. This tag signals that revenue-driven acquisition is the primary objective, whether managed internally or with external support.

What counts as acquisition?

Acquisition means pursuing true new business: a first-time purchase from a franchisee, a new logo, or a fresh rollout across a multi-unit group. If the revenue justifies outbounding, it’s a STAR account for proactive outreach and revenue-driven growth.

To formalize, acquisition includes any activity aimed at capturing new business through initiatives like:

• New business: Any customer or location that has never previously purchased from you and establishes a new contract.
• Pilots: Contractually confirmed trials, where the goal is to secure a full rollout if the pilot is successful.
• Rollouts: Full-scale implementations following a successful pilot, especially when there are still untapped locations within a brand.

Rule of Thumb
Acquisition opportunities often align directly with newly executed contracts. If a business entity (e.g., a franchisee) or its locations require a new agreement, this points to an acquisition effort. Conversely, if a new location is added under an existing contract and inherits pre-negotiated terms, it doesn’t qualify as acquisition—even though it contributes to revenue growth and should still be tracked in the CRM.

The goal here is dedicated, outbound-driven growth, where new business acquisition is the top priority. Brands tagged as STAR accounts should be those with clear, high-revenue potential.

How to assess if acquisition is justified

To determine whether a brand is worth outbounding for acquisition, start by evaluating the revenue potential against the total cost of acquisition. Unlike assessing strategic fit or targetability, this step requires careful consideration of the investment involved in winning each unit or franchisee. Think about the cumulative costs—sales rep time, third-party list purchases, custom marketing content, prospecting tools, and commissions—against the forecasted revenue from the opportunity.

Ask yourself these key questions to evaluate acquisition potential:

• What’s the total number of untapped franchisees or units, and is the potential revenue meaningful to our growth targets?
• Is projected revenue per location high enough to justify acquisition costs?
• Will revenue from new franchisees cover the cost of support and maintenance?

If these questions indicate significant new revenue potential, the brand qualifies as a STAR account: Strategic, Targetable, Acquisition → Revenue-justified, emphasizing rapid, outbound acquisition efforts.

Disqualifying factors for acquisition as a strategy

Even when a brand passes Strategic Fit and Targetability, it doesn’t always warrant acquisition. Sometimes, the cost, time, or resources required to win a new franchisee outweigh the potential revenue. This financial imbalance often leads back to a common pain point in the restaurant industry: pricing. While SaaS solutions can offer clear value, the high cost of acquiring individual franchisees frequently overshadows the returns—a dynamic we refer to as the SaaS pricing paradox.

Read more: The restaurant industry’s SaaS pricing paradox →

Consider these potential disqualifiers for acquisition:

• Cost-prohibitive: The acquisition cost is too high relative to the revenue potential, even if strategic alignment and targetability are clear.
• Pricing constraints: Franchisees within the brand are cost-sensitive or expect “pennies-on-the-dollar” pricing, limiting potential revenue per sale.
• Timing issues: Market conditions or current brand initiatives (such as a rebrand or corporate restructuring) make acquisition unfeasible right now.
• Resource limitations: The required bandwidth to target and win these franchisees isn’t available at the moment, indicating that time and personnel could be better allocated elsewhere.
• New insights: Fresh information may reveal strategic misalignment or previously hidden complexities that challenge successful implementation.

When these factors arise, it’s usually best to deprioritize the brand for acquisition or reclassify it as a STEP account, focusing on a slower, relationship-based expansion strategy instead.

By now, you should have a clear sense of what qualifies as acquisition and why treating new franchisees as distinct acquisition opportunities matters. Next, we’ll dig into expansion, where the focus shifts from winning new business to deepening relationships with existing accounts.

(Re)defining expansion potential for “STEP” concepts

As we discussed with acquisition, a lack of clarity around expansion often leads companies into the Expansion Trap—a situation where every dollar generated after the initial sale is automatically considered “expansion.” This default assumption frequently gives teams a false sense of steady, organic growth and leads them to expect passive returns. Without clearly defining what qualifies as expansion, teams fail to prioritize accounts effectively, and cross-departmental efforts become misaligned.

Expansion in the STEP framework means actively pursuing additional revenue with current customers—specifically through upsells, cross-sells, and new openings (NROs)—but only if the opportunity justifies the investment. While some STEP accounts may be slower to grow than acquisition-focused STAR accounts, their revenue potential still warrants active engagement and resource allocation.

By defining expansion as a proactive strategy to grow per-location MRR from existing franchisees, we’re positioning STEP to include only those brands where a strategic growth objective is feasible and impactful.

What counts as expansion?

Expansion refers to any effort to grow revenue from existing franchisees or accounts where the brand relationship is established. For brands tagged as STEP, your focus shifts to building on that existing foundation by upselling additional modules, cross-selling products, and managing NROs under existing agreements and pricing. Importantly, new franchisees are considered acquisition targets; expansion should focus solely on increasing value from current customers.

When a brand is tagged as a STEP account, the goal is to actively drive growth within an established base. This may include:

• Upsell: Selling additional modules or upgrades to franchisees who already use your core product.
• Cross-sell: Offering complementary products to existing franchisees, expanding the scope of your relationship and account value.
• NROs: As new locations open, expansion strategy should ensure these units adopt your solution according to existing agreements.

While expansion has often been seen as slower, passive, or less predictable, this perception usually stems from a lack of prioritization. Defining STEP accounts with clear criteria brings structure to how expansion is documented, measured, and forecasted. Brands tagged as STEP reflect meaningful revenue potential that warrants active engagement and aligns teams on driving account value.

Brands that don’t meet STEP or STAR criteria may still experience organic growth, though without a defined, strategic focus.

How to assess if expansion is justified

To determine whether an existing customer should be classified as STEP, assess whether the revenue potential justifies ongoing efforts for upsells, cross-sells, or NROs. Key questions include:

• Is there a strong base of existing franchisees we can upsell or cross-sell additional products to?
• Is the potential revenue from upsells or cross-sells meaningful to our growth goals?
• Are there existing relationships that can be leveraged for long-term, incremental growth?

If these questions point to meaningful growth potential within existing relationships, the brand qualifies as a STEP account: Strategic, Targetable, Expansion → Priority-justified, with a focus on proactive, ongoing expansion.

Disqualifying factors for expansion as a strategy

Even after passing the Strategic Fit and Targetability filters, some brands may not be suitable for STEP targeting. Expansion requires a certain level of existing engagement, and without that, prioritizing the account could mean expending resources on low-return opportunities.

Here are key reasons to disqualify a brand from STEP:

• No existing customers: If the brand has no franchisees currently using your solution, it’s not an expansion opportunity—this would instead be classified as acquisition, if justified by cost.
• Low upsell or cross-sell potential: If current franchisees already use all applicable products, or if additional offerings are irrelevant to them, there may be limited growth opportunities.
• Cost prohibitive: Even with some existing franchisees, if the potential upsell or cross-sell value is too low to justify focused resource allocation, the brand shouldn’t be prioritized for STEP.

Ultimately, STEP accounts should offer substantial and achievable growth potential, balancing strategic relevance with practical cost justification. Brands not prioritized as either STAR or STEP lack a clearly documented, proactive strategy and may instead be approached opportunistically as low-priority, reactive accounts.

Where do we go from here?

After categorizing a brand as either STAR (Acquisition) or STEP (Expansion), there’s one final decision to make: which direction should your sales motion take? Should you pursue a Top-Down (↓) strategy by engaging corporate leadership, or a Bottom-Up (↑) approach, targeting individual franchisees directly?

Adding this directional tag—STAR↓ or STEP↑, for example—provides clarity on how to approach each brand and prepares you for the next step: assigning the right team. Whether you’re driving quick revenue through top-down corporate influence or nurturing brand adoption through bottom-up expansion, defining the motion will be key to operationalizing your strategy effectively.

This choice impacts everything from resource allocation and team structure to how quickly you drive brand-wide adoption. Growing within franchise-heavy brands requires more than just categorizing accounts; it demands choosing and executing the right strategy for each opportunity.

Before moving on, remember…

• STAR: Strategic, Targetable, Acquisition → Revenue-justified: Focus on revenue-driven acquisition where potential justifies cost.
• STEP: Strategic, Targetable, Expansion → Priority-justified: Prioritize proactive expansion where value can be grown in current relationships.
• Assess for both: Evaluate each brand for acquisition, expansion, or both, based on revenue impact.
• Non-priority accounts: Manage disqualified brands passively.
• Tag each account: Mark each as STAR and/or STEP and add Top-Down (↓) or Bottom-Up (↑) for strategic clarity.
• Avoid the “Expansion Trap”: Clearly define expansion to avoid wasted resources and missed value.

By aligning brands with STAR or STEP, you’re set to strategically assign accounts and mobilize the right teams for growth. The final step will focus on assigning the right resources to drive results where they matter most.

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Explore how Restaurantology’s data and consulting services can empower your business by contacting us for more detailed insights. Whether you’re looking to refine your go-to-market, optimize systems and market data, or gain a deeper understanding of industry trends, Restaurantology provides actionable intelligence to guide your strategic decisions and help you stay ahead in the competitive restaurant tech landscape.