Franchise Owners
“What also makes franchise owners unique is that many of them buy a franchise as an investment or to realize the dream of owning their own business.”
By definition, franchising is the practice of using someone else’s name or successful business model. While this may seem like a simple concept, clients who own franchise businesses are faced with many unique challenges. This is compounded by the fact that, unlike our sales and distribution clients, many of these clients who own franchise businesses purchased them without much experience in the industry involved.
We know how franchising works, including the FTC acts and the many state franchising laws and regulations. We’re well-versed in the complex and overlapping matrix of state and federal laws that govern the registration, sale and termination of franchise businesses—laws that often vary dramatically from state to state. Therefore, regardless of how smart, savvy or experienced a business person the buyer of a franchise may be, very few are equipped to navigate through the maze of issues they will confront when buying into a franchise relationship.
For example, it is very common that a franchisee’s operation may be losing money, but the franchisor continues to reap the same on-going royalty. We look at why the franchisee is losing money; what the franchisor might be doing (or not doing) that is causing that loss; and how the franchise regulations can help them. We’re very good at finding leverage to improve or alter a franchise relationship and get relief for the franchisee.
These are the situations we deal with every day. We consult with clients who are thinking about buying a franchise. We review the mountain of data and information franchisors provide to prospective purchasers, and we distill this into critical key points you need to know in order to make one of the most important investments of your life. Most importantly, we go to the mat for our franchise clients who are caught in the inexorable financial miasma of a bad franchise purchase. We have even helped our clients organize franchise owners’ groups, to exercise a collective voice in addressing systemic franchise problems.