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Broad Street Licensing Group has been taking restaurants to retail through brand licensing for over 20 years.

And we’ve seen some smart plays, deft moves and great clients.

We’ve also seen some incredibly stupid things that end up in our Broad Street Licensing Group HALL OF SHAME.

It’s rare that a brand’s licensing program fails at retail except because of its own mistakes.

That’s not to say we’ve never made a misstep, but in a majority of cases, brands fail at retail because of something the brand owner does or doesn’t do. So over the next five days, we’re going to highlight five dumb things NOT to do if you plan on taking your restaurant to retail. First:

1.) Make sure you have 100% internal buy-in from management, including a “licensing champion” who has the ear of the CEO: Even large, multinational corporations are really a collection of small fiefdoms. You cannot expect a licensing program to succeed unless Marketing, Finance and Ops are supportive.

Plan on stopping by our panel at the National Restaurant Show at Chicago’s McCormick Place Sunday, May 17th entitled “The Rise of Nontraditional Foodservice: Don’t Panic, Adapt!” Joining BSLG’s Bill Cross will be retail guru, Jimmy Matorin, whose restaurant industry breakfast on Saturday, May 16th is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Rounding out the panel will be Abbie Westra, Editor in Chief of Convenience Store Products.