Afterburner featured in The Franchise Times

Afterburner was recently featured in The Franchise Times in a piece titled "New Franchise". The article discusses how founder Jim Murphy recently decided to franchise the Afterburner. Featured in the piece are details on the company’s development plans, past successes and history. Click here to read to the entire segment.

New Franchise

By: JEFFREY MCKINNEY

Replicating the founder’s success as a consultant will be a challenge for this new franchise, observers say. But Jim Murphy counts tough customers in his corner, including the New York Giants in their 2012 Super Bowl run.

When a pilot engages a fighter jet’s afterburner, it accelerates the jet’s performance and dramatically increases its speed. So when the 12-year veteran U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter pilot and instructor Jim “Murph” Murphy needed a name for his consulting company, Afterburner Inc. was a natural. The Atlanta-based management training, consulting and placement firm offers military tactics to help individuals, businesses and organizations execute their strategies more effectively.

Now, he’s entering new territory as he begins to franchise the concept and offer incentives to military personnel who sign on as franchisees.

‘It gave everyone a voice’
Murphy launched the company in 1996 when he developed a program he calls The Flawless Execution model. The continuous improvement process helps clients develop a strategy through planning, briefing, executing and debriefing.

Murphy and a team of more than 50 elite military personnel, including Navy SEALs and fighter pilots, teach via seminars, workshops and other means. “Our model increases individual team and organizational performance,” Murphy says.

Murphy’s concept has struck a chord with several Fortune 500 companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Bausch & Lomb and Cisco Systems. He’s especially proud that his program helped the New York Giants football team on their way to win the 2012 Super Bowl. The Giants beat the New England Patriots 21-17.

Getting to the Super Bowl, much less winning it, was not in their sights halfway through the season when the Giants were struggling. In October 2011, the NFL team’s management hired Afterburner and applied some of its tools and techniques to improve the team’s performance, Murphy says.

Charles Way, the Giants’ director of player development, said Afterburner’s biggest contribution to the team was its concept of debriefing without referring to name or rank. This practice “conveyed to our players that no matter who you are, you have a voice and a right to hold your teammates accountable for what they do on and off the field,” Way wrote in an email. “This caught on with our guys, because it gave everyone a voice. From our veterans to the undrafted rookies, everyone now felt empowered to hold each other accountable.”

Murphy, 48, says the Giants turnaround illustrates Afterburner’s methods. Now, Murphy plans to introduce that same model, as well as other Afterburner products and services, to small and medium-sized businesses.The franchise, Afterburner Network Inc., is being offered to current or retired elite military men and women. His plan calls for 50 franchisees in the system by 2017.

Click here to read the entire article.