LearningRx in the News

LearningRx learning center franchise is a top small business franchise opportunity. LearningRx franchise provides one-on-one training to improve children's cognitive and mental skills at a time when children's educational services are more in demand than ever. Take a look at what is being said about LearningRx and its franchises.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“BRAIN TRAINING” COMPANY NAMED ONE OF TOP 100 U.S. FRANCHISES

LearningRx makes Franchise Magazine’s hot 100 companies to watch for in 2007

Colorado Springs, Colo., January 4, 2007 - Franchise Magazine has released its “Top 100 Franchises” for the year and LearningRx has made the list.

It’s hardly the first accolade for the growing franchise, which specializes in cognitive skills therapy or “brain training.” The Colorado-based company was also recently named as the 45th-fastest growing franchise system by Franchise Times, which was soon followed by an exceptional franchisee Net Promoter Score of 69 percent.

“While we knew our clients and franchise owners were very happy with our cognitive skills training programs based on the hundreds of calls, emails and letters we've received, it wasn't until we applied the Net Promoter evaluation that we truly understood our level of franchisee satisfaction,” said Dr. Ken Gibson, founder and CEO of LearningRx. “With the average company in America coming in around 11 percent, our score of 69 percent just solidified that we were not only doing something we believed in, but also changing the lives of our clients and franchise owners for the better.”

The recent ranking in Franchise Magazine's Top 100 confirms industry speculation that “brain training” holds incredible potential for both educational/mental development and financial gain. Anjan Chatterjee of Popular Science even says “Prospecting for better brains may be the new gold rush.”

“LearningRx expects to grow from 36 centers to 300 by 2009,” said Dr. Gibson. “There’s an ever-growing need for cognitive skills training in our country and beyond. We’ve developed a successful program that allows us to fill a niche and help our participants become better learners.”

ABOUT LEARNINGRX

LearningRx specializes in identifying and correcting the underlying cognitive skill deficiencies that keep people from achieving their full potential in school, business or life. The program was pioneered by Dr. Ken Gibson and refined over a decade of research and testing. Using a comprehensive skills assessment test and intensive one-on-one training, certified trainers quickly and effectively enhance weak cognitive skills such as attention, memory, processing speed, and problem solving. Students completing the program usually see three to four years of improvement in as little as 12 to 24 weeks and benefit from improved confidence, self-esteem and overall achievement. The company guarantees improvement for all people with deficiencies who complete the training.

To find the nearest LearningRx center, visit www.LearningRx.com.

Lessons in Franchising

REGION UNUSUALLY PACKED WITH NEW ENTREPRENEURS

By JIM BAINBRIDGE
THE GAZETTE

After 20 years of tinkering with a system to improve cognitive learning skills — brain training — Dr. Ken Gibson is your basic overnight success.

Gibson’s LearningRx system is one of the 50 fastestgrowing franchises in the country, according to Franchise Times magazine, opening new markets just about as quickly as it opens minds.

Since taking the plunge in August 2003, Gibson, along with his daughter Tanya Mitchell and son-in-law Dean Tenpas, has opened 42 franchises with as many as eight more ready to join the system in September.

“Our target is 300 over the next three years,” Gibson said.

That’s ambitious even in suddenly franchise-mad Colorado, where quality of life and an entrepreneurial spirit have prompted a sudden growth spurt.

FRANdata, the world’s largest database on franchises, has identified 72 such companies with headquarters in Colorado, 39 percent of which have started within the past five years.

That compares with 23 percent growth for the nation during the same period. In 2004, the last year with complete data, nationwide franchiser growth was 3 percent, and franchises in Colorado grew at a rate of 14 percent.

With 100 outlets, Miracle Method is not only the largest franchiser in Colorado Springs, but it’s the nation’s leading bathtub, tile and countertop refinishing franchiser by a factor of two. Learning- Rx is next biggest here, followed by ambitious newcomer Wild Wings ’n Things, which has 13 franchises and is aiming for 100 statewide within five years.

Chuck Pistor, Miracle Method’s owner, thinks all this growth is the reflection of larger issues at play in the American economy.

“This overall transition to franchising may be in part the result of outsourcing jobs to India and China,” Pistor said. “People here are looking for opportunities, and the trend is toward the service side of the business. Anybody selling a commodity is struggling against China.”

“Another factor may be that people here are a little more independent, a little more entrepreneurial than some other places — even a bit more willing to share information,” Gibson said.

Still, franchising is as likely to fail as any other startup business.

Gibson cites a figure from the International Franchise Association that puts the failure rate as high as 85 percent for franchisers.

So with success stories such as Miracle Method and LearningRx, the important thing to look at is not what they’ve done, but how they have done it.

And that starts with the service. Gibson said he started working on the LearningRx system while he was still running a pediatric optometrist practice in Wisconsin in the late 1980s, and he has tested the system in more than 360 doctors’ clinics.

In 17 years of issuing licensing agreements and fine-tuning the system, Gibson developed a rigorous one-on-one program that he is confident can provide “lifelong improvements” in comprehension, processing speed, memory, attention, auditory process, visualization and reasoning skills.

“We had never franchised anything before,” Gibson said, “just developed product, worked on making it a fantastic system.”

Given that he was new to the franchising game, he and Tenpas enrolled in the Certified Franchise Executives program administered by the IFA to learn everything they could about franchising, and then they brought in consultants to help with goals and marketing strategies.

And have they haven’t stopped doing that. Each year, Gibson brings in a consultant to a franchisee meeting to discuss aspects of the industry. Last year it was Michael Seid, author of “Franchising for Dummies,” who talked about what factors franchisees must emphasize to succeed.

“The people who have started a franchise with us in the past 1½ years are growing three times faster than those who came before,” Gibson said, “because we have a better system and our marketing is better.”

One of the first lessons he learned was to determine the right focus. The LearningRx system is designed to get results in any age group from preschool to seniors, he said, but the biggest market is schoolage children, and that has been its point of emphasis.

About 90 percent of its clients are school-age.

“If you are chasing seven rabbits at once,” Gibson said, “you’re not going to catch any.”

Gibson developed a different pricing structure for his franchises, requiring startup costs of $100,000 to $190,000, about double what many franchisers set as their minimum level of financing.

The theory here is that franchisers sometimes set a dollar figure assuming a three-month break-even period — that being smaller and therefore more attractive to a potential franchisee.

“But nobody ever breaks even at three months,” Gibson said. “We try to figure the dollars required to cover a franchise for 9 to 12 months. I’d rather have people not accept us than fail.”

And that’s the other big factor with Gibson. Finding the right people to run a Learning- Rx franchise. What he finds works best is referrals from current LearningRx franchise holders.

“They always say that you have to have submissive people running franchise operations, rule followers,” Gibson said, “but I like it when the franchisees are entrepreneurial. They challenge you, but they make the business grow. The main thing we are looking for is someone with high ethics and character, who fall in love with the product.”

This emphasis is especially important to Gibson, given the company policy on program pricing. One-on-one training fees range from $1,200 to $8,000, based on the student’s level of need, how much training the parents are willing to undertake at home and whether the training session is 12 or 24 weeks.

LearningRx said it also has a policy against “upselling,” starting students in a lowerpriced course and then pushing them into something more expensive. The idea is to identify need and address it upfront.

Said Gibson: “There was a book, ‘The Ultimate Question,’ published by the Harvard Business School that deals with the one question that companies must ask of their customers: ‘Would you recommend us to a friend?’ That is the standard we are trying to maintain, to be worthy of being recommended to a friend.”

The Gazette August 14, 2006

Making the Grade

FRANCHISING CAN HELP ENTREPRENEURS MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN PEOPLE'S LIVES.

Ken Gibson is a successful entrepreneur, but his success can best be measured by the lives he's changed rather than the dollars he's made. Gibson is founder of LearningRx, a franchise that provides one-on-one training to improve children's cognitive and mental skills. By working with third-through 12th-grades to develop attention, memory, reasoning, logic, and visual and auditory processing, he is offering an effective solution at a time when children's
educational services are more in demand than ever.

"We train the brain to unlock potential in individuals," explains Gibson. The company expects 2005 revenue to reach $4.5 million and will soon have programs available for preschoolers and even senior citizens.

Initially, Gibson thought he could make the largest impact by licensing his 12-to 24-week training programs to the more than 500 health professionals who helped develop and refine them. However, he soon understood it would take much more to get others actively involved. In August 2002, with the help and support of his family, Gibson opened a LearningRx location in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which pulled in more than $250,000 in its first four months. "We realized that showing [people] we could do it wasn't good enough," says Gibson. "We actually had to teach them to market, organize and hire people, and that meant we had to go to franchising."

LearningRx franchises became available in 2003. Interest spread quickly, and 27 were opened in the first year. Gibson plans on increasing the number of locations to 75 by early 2006. And at the age of 60, his life's work is paying off. "The greatest joy comes from the stories [franchisees] tell me of lives that are changed," says Gibson. "They're phenomenal, and I just cry sometimes as they share these stories."

Entrepreneur Magazine September 2005

Experts at LearningRx Teach How To Learn. Their Help Changes Lives.

By Anita Miller
Retailer Staff Reporter

There's energy in the room. It's alive in people's eyes, in the cadence of their speech. They lean forward to listen to each other, their heads nodding approval, their hands furiously taking notes. These people are passionate about what they are doing. They are the trainers, directors and franchisees of LearningRx, a Colorado Springs-headquartered business that is revolutionizing how people learn. Attending a convention at the Wyndham Hotel last month, the group focused on continually improving their methods.

"When we get these people together," says LearningRx founder and president, Dr. Ken Gibson, "it reignites our passion to get the type of help we provide to more and more people."

LearningRx goes after the cause of learning problems

The type of help LearningRx provides is a training system to enhance cognitive learning skills that apply the most recent scientific research on learning. It is cognitive skills that allow students to process sensory information. Processing includes the ability to attend to, discriminate, analyze, evaluate and compare information; to recall past experiences; and to determine a plan of action. Students develop these skills by their interaction with their environment and other people. If cognitive skills aren't developed properly, learning deficiencies can occur.

LearningRx utilizes an assessment battery which identifies and reports skill strengths and weaknesses in several cognitive areas. Once a student's deficiencies are pinpointed, LearningRx trainers develop a customized deficient cognitive skills, LearningRx goes after the cause of the problem, unlike tutoring programs that futilely fight the symptoms.

LearningRx provides consistent, lifelong results

"I've seen so many fantastic results through LearningRx," says Kristen Smith an assistant director and convention attendee from Twinsburg, Ohio. "We are equipping children with the tools they need to be lifelong learners and it is changing their lives." Kristen describes the experience of her high school-aged cousin who benefited from LearningRx. "He was doing poorly in school - academically and socially. After getting help from a LearningRx trainer, his grades improved and so did his self-confidence, which in turn improved his social involvement."

At the convention's round table discussions, it is clear that trainers, directors and franchisees are all seeking to achieve similar results in as many students as they can reach. Tanya Mitchell, National Trainer and daughter of Dr. Gibson, sums it up. "We are consistently changing how people learn, and that's changing their lives."

This growing, national company is represented by a local center in Colorado Springs as well. This is your point of contact to get the learning and reading help you are interested in. To find out more about how LearningRx can change the life of someone you know, call 800-535-5441.

Retailer September 2005