Hooked on Franchising
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After many, many years of association with the franchise industry (28 and counting at this point), it is abundantly clear to me that once bitten by the bug of becoming a franchisor, the successful (and unfortunately sometimes the unsuccessful) entrepreneur is simply hooked on the idea.
Now, I readily agree that energy and enthusiasm are essential ingredients in business success, but there needs to be a very careful examination of the real pitfalls encountered during the planning, launch and management of a franchising company.
The very first question, of course, is should I franchise my business? This is ultimately answered via a sound feasibility study, but watch out for pitfall #1. It is my experience that many franchise consultants (that work for a fee, as most do) have a bad habit of using any type of franchise feasibility study to promote the idea of franchising a given business. Of course, the excited want to be franchisor falls easy prey to the encouragement of such consultants because there appears to be confirmation of the businesss credibility and franchise worthiness. Im not exercising an ego trip here, but it is absolutely true that I suggest to most inquiries from prospective franchisors that they consider not franchising their concept.
Franchising is not for everyone or for every business. The old adage that any business can be franchised, but not every business should be franchised is true today and always will be.