Small Business Blog

Download this Podcast!

“The Franchisor wants me to be successful. With that kind of support, I can power through any business challenges that come my way.”

Here’s where I have to tell you more about our franchise story: we still own and operate the franchise we purchased. After a terrible first year, we turned things around to achieve moderate profitability. It’s not the kind of profitability you dream about; it has to be healthily supplemented with other lines of business to be even worthwhile. But we found a way to make it work. And frankly, the support of our franchisor was not a factor in the turn around. In fact, at times, we went directly against the advice of our franchisor. I can think of two specific pieces of franchisor advice that would have likely put us out of business if we had followed it. There have been times when I truly wondered if franchisee churn was the franchisor’s true business model.

The reality is, franchisors only care about your success in as far as it facilitates their success. And this is not really unreasonable. You would do the same thing. If you had a choice between firing yourself or firing an employee, for example–you’re going to fire the employee, right? In the same token, your franchisor will, at the end of the day, pursue its own success. Even if that negatively impacts you and your business.

Real-life scenario (continue reading…)