Voda brings organization and professionalism to its conference with Zoho Backstage
- INDUSTRY Home services franchising
- EVENT TYPE In-person, annual franchise conference
The organization
Voda Cleaning & Restoration is a home services franchise offering carpet cleaning, water damage restoration, fire and smoke mitigation, and related property recovery services. Though the brand is only three years old, it has expanded rapidly, awarding franchise territories across the country, from California to New York, Maryland to Wisconsin, and more areas.
Jesalyn Johnson is the Onboarding Manager at Voda, responsible for guiding new franchise owners through their three-to-four-month onboarding journey after they sign their franchise agreement. She also leads planning for VodaCon, the company's annual franchise conference, an event she has helped organize since its inception. In 2026, the event marked Voda's third annual conference, an unusually fast cadence for a franchise this young, and a reflection of how quickly the brand is scaling.
VodaCon brings together Voda's approximately 118 franchise owners from across the country, along with the brand's home office team and strategic partners, for several days of networking, training, and celebration. Attendance has climbed each year, from roughly 158 attendees in year one, to 200 in year two, with a goal of 250 for the upcoming edition.
The challenge
Planning VodaCon is, in Jesalyn's words, "an event almost like a wedding on steroids," and it is only one part of her job. With a lean team of about five people, most of whom also carry full-time onboarding and marketing responsibilities, Voda needed a way to run a multi-day conference, complete with keynote sessions, breakout tracks, round-tables, an awards dinner, and dozens of sponsors, without adding new tools or headcount every year.
The stakes were also financial. Sponsorships at VodaCon range from a $4,000 booth-only package to a $25,000 platinum tier, and Jesalyn's team is directly accountable for making that experience feel professional.
"Some of our sponsors are paying $25,000, so we want everything to look professional. The website, the information they get, all of it has to feel organized. We don't want anything that makes us look unprofessional."
Jesalyn also knew that whatever platform she chose had to be simple enough for a small, stretched team to run largely on their own.
"I needed something that my team could just pick up and use. It’s easy to learn, easy to navigate, and we can get things done pretty quickly.”
Beyond ease of use, Voda needed a way to collect registration and sponsorship payments affordably, keep every franchise owner's registration status organized in one place, and give attendees a single destination for the event website, agenda, and updates.
The solution
Voda has used Zoho Backstage since VodaCon's very first edition, building the event website, setting up ticket classes, and managing registrations for franchise owners, guests, and sponsors all on one platform. Alongside Backstage, Jesalyn's small team relies on Microsoft SharePoint for internal communication, a shared spreadsheet to track details, and AI tools like Copilot and ChatGPT to move faster, but Backstage remains the core system running the event itself.
Jesalyn and two colleagues from the marketing team handle the entire Backstage build without needing a large team involved.
"Setting up the tickets and building the website are pretty straightforward. It’s really just me and two people from my team. We always say, ‘less cooks in the kitchen,’ but somehow we get it done.”
Voda uses Backstage to manage several distinct ticket types each year, including standard franchise owner registration ($1,000, covering everything but the hotel), guest tickets for spouses or employees, and sponsorship tickets tied to Voda's four sponsorship tiers: platinum, gold, bronze, and booth-only. Last year alone, the platform helped Voda coordinate 36 separate sponsorships.
The Backstage features Voda uses:
- Event website builder
- Ticket class setup for franchise owners, guests, and sponsors
- Multi-tier sponsorship registration
- Registration tracking and organization
Benefits & ROI
By bringing its conference planning and registration into one platform, Voda has been able to maintain a professional event experience while managing a growing conference with a small team.
A professional front door for a fast-growing franchise
For a brand only three years old, looking polished in front of high-paying sponsors matters. Jesalyn credits Backstage with giving Voda a website and registration experience that reads as established and organized, even as the company scales quickly.
"Zoho Backstage just makes it easier for us to keep everything organized and make sure the conference looks professional.”
A small team, running a big event
With only three to five people directly involved in planning VodaCon on top of their full-time roles, staying with a platform the team already knows has been essential to managing the workload.
"We know how to use Zoho Backstage, we’re comfortable with it, and it works for us. Honestly, we just don’t have the bandwidth right now to learn a whole new platform.”
Confidence in the system, even without it
Asked what running VodaCon would look like without Backstage, Jesalyn didn't hesitate.
"Without Backstage, I think we’d be spending a lot more hours on everything. There’d probably be more mistakes, more things getting missed, and a lot more disorganization. Ultimately, that would show.”
Positive impact felt by attendees
While franchise owners don't interact with Backstage directly, Jesalyn sees its impact in their experience of the event overall.
"The attendees feedback we got was that people really enjoyed the event, the education, the networking, everything. A lot of that comes down to having things organized behind the scenes. When things aren’t organized, people notice.”
Future plans
VodaCon is only getting bigger. Jesalyn expects next year's event to grow from two and a half days to three full days, with more attendees, more sponsorship revenue, and more content for franchise owners. As the event scales, Jesalyn is looking to Backstage to help Voda go further in a few key areas:
- Streamlined check-in: moving beyond manual name entry at a registration table toward a faster, more organized check-in process.
- Sponsor and exhibitor management: deeper tools for managing sponsor logistics and booth assignments as the sponsor program grows.
- Lead capture: QR-code based lead capture so exhibitors can scan attendee badges instead of relying on business cards.
- Automated payment collection: collecting sponsorship payments, some as high as $25,000, at the time of registration, rather than chasing invoices in the weeks before the event.