The Franchise

Each day we hear of companies entering the franchising industry. This is good news for America, right? Well, yes and know. Yes, because franchising is the closest thing to the spirit of free enterprise as any other method of doing business and because franchising offers small business people advantages that they would not normally have in pursuing their American Dream. However it is unfortunate but true that the average Franchisor failure rate is 5:1 in five years. Meaning they are gone out of business in that short amount of time. This is horrific news really. Why is this? Well most often it is due to over regulation, junk lawsuits, under capitalization or greed. Having played in the franchising industry I have seen it all.

If you are looking for a franchise opportunity, the choice is mind boggling. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of different types of franchise available for you to invest in, with the same variety in cost. Each have their own benefits and usually the more you pay the more potential to earn. You obviously want to select a profitable business venture so it is important that you thoroughly research.

Imagine that you have operated a successful franchise business for the past several years. Your franchise agreement’s term expires in the near future and you are contemplating whether renewing the agreement would be a wise business decision. In the past couple of years it has become all too apparent that you are receiving little, if any, benefit or assistance from your franchisor. Yet, you continue to pay the franchisor thousands of dollars each year in royalties and other fees. You therefore decide that it would make better “business sense” to operate independently after expiration of your franchise term. After all, you are very familiar with the business and have worked extremely hard in developing and establishing a solid client base to enable you to continue running a profitable and prosperous operation.

If recent media coverage were any indication, it would appear that virtually nobody in the United States has had any success at losing weight. Crash diets, weight loss pills and get-thin-quick gimmicks are more prevalent than ever, yet two-thirds of our population is still overweight. Even more startling is the fact that approximately one-third of the people in our country are clinically obese.

So… you are thinking about either starting your/a new business from scratch, or possibly upgrading an existing business to take advantage of the benefit side of franchising such as possibly better advertising opportunities, better supply of goods for sale, name recognition.. any or all of the above.

The attractions and benefits of the better known and reliable franchises are many.

Starting an eBay franchise is “the next big thing” in franchising. Ebay attracts millions of sellers and buyers to its site for a multitude of reasons. You can find just about anything you want on eBay from that childhood lunchbox you always wanted to a brand new car. Yet many people are finding that there is an untapped group of people looking for someone else to sell their things on eBay, prompting an new opportunity in eBay franchises known as “dropoffs.”

Often small business types consider starting their own business and are smart enough to figure it out. However, they lack financial resources to get it done. They have little up front monies. Let’s say under $20,000 available to them. Should these folks consider a low cost franchise? Would a low-cost franchise service business fit the bill?