Earlier this year I talked about the 2,500 reasons I love 2016. I was referring to more than 2,500 franchise owners across our Dwyer Group service brands who are on the front lines in business. And this week I am reminded of their great strength again.

In honor of National Small Business Week, I am reflecting on the countless small-business owners – our franchise owners among them – who are living their dreams. When people think of franchising, they often think of the big brands that have become household names – giants of industry – through the power of franchising.

In reality, however, those big brands are the collective result of small-business owners, franchisees, who own and operate those businesses on the local level and work incredibly hard every day.

Dream Big. Start Small.

The theme of this year’s National Small Business Week is “Dream Big. Start Small.” That’s the true definition of even the largest franchise networks that exist today. Before McDonald’s made it McBig, Ray Kroc had a dream to replicate a good hamburger at a fair price, and do it consistently again and again and again. Before Subway took the theme to Eat Fresh around the world, Fred DeLuca had perfected a great sandwich made to order.

Likewise, plenty of other entrepreneurs became legends for starting small and dreaming big. That included my father Don Dwyer. But none of these individuals had some gigantic vision to venture out into the world and create these chains all on their own. Instead, they embraced a program to share their ideas and bring others along with them – other small business owners.

Franchising is an incredible vehicle for taking a small business idea and sharing it with others.

What so many of these wonderful leaders did was peel back the curtain and show off their great “small business.” The capacity they had to share a good thing, using franchising as the format to replicate it, is why those brands exist on a monumental scale today.

Call any Mr. Rooter, visit any Subway, or drive through your local McDonald’s. Men and women run these operations on the front lines with a powerful brand to represent. And it is still up to them to make success happen by following a system. They have a leg up versus a mom-and-pop operation that must figure it all out from day one. But they are just as much a small business at the local level.

And success for small business owners is as powerful as ever. At Dwyer Group, specifically, I get so excited when I see franchise owners living their dreams and also living and leading with values. We say that’s how they Live R.I.C.H. – following the themes of respect, integrity, customer focus and having fun in the process. And there’s nothing small about that!

Happy National Small Business Week!