I have thoroughly enjoyed every post on this thread, including my own
Regardless of all the misinformed, self opinionated outpourings decrying franchising and purporting to prove why it can never work or be successful can I just add a simple comment from the point of view of someone who actually has experience (a) as a franchisee and (b) as a franchisor? (For three years in the late 90's I was a franchisee of a company called FiltaFry who serviced deep fryers in catering establishments)
Franchising works
That is a fact. Denying it is akin to telling the Wright Brothers "It'll never get off the ground"
Mick Kent may have been talking tongue in cheek when he said:
in 10 years i could have 30 franchisee's cleaning 120k a month with 30k in royalties to me a month. It is perfectly possible. The only reason I haven't progressed nearer this goal is that I started this when I was 62 with the intention of retiring when I reached 65.
I appointed franchisee no. 1 in September 2006, over the following three years I appointed a new franchisee every six months so that when I reached retirement in late 2009 I had 6 franchisees and an income of £50,000 plus per year in royalties and my State and private pension.
I did it all myself with the help of my wife. I canvassed the work, trained the franchisees, did everything necessary to ensure I had a solid successful business.
If I had continued then in 9 years I would have had 18 franchisees and an income of £150,000 per year. Had I started this when I was a young man I would quite literally be a millionaire.
My wife then had the idea that I should condense all my experience into a business package and market it. This also was successful - I have sold 25+ of my packages at £1,500 each. Several of my customers have commented on this thread, including probably the most high profile one: Vin Kennedy.
I owe a debt of gratitude to NWH whose increasingly desperate attempts to convince you all that franchising is a waste of time have had the opposite effect: I have had four new enquiries about my system from people who could see that if he is so illogically intent on 'proving' how useless it is, there must actually be something in it.
Keep up the good work
For anyone who would like to hear the opinions of someone who actually has experience of franchising, and has succeeded in it, rather than the endless negative content of some of the posts on this thread, just click on the link at the bottom of my posts:
www.jolisian...........