Why should we try to form another independent franchisee association?

That’s a very good question.

Traditionally, franchisee associations get a few quick wins and when the leaders are bought off or banished. The gains (plus) are clawed back.

That doesn’t have to happen any longer. The gains can be permanent, quantifiable and anonymous.

Like all things, managing information has changed: this time in franchise investors’ favour.

To release the million of dollars, you’ll need  a pro to advise you.

Use legal, organizational and technological leverage to move your franchisor

Multiply your efforts by using the laws of our society intelligently.

Accelerating Relationship Leverage

A private for-profit corporation (anonymous franchisee shareholders) AND a 100% locked-down, franchise law-specific indexed document database (wiki) pivoting WITH a highly public attorneyless franchise network.

Benefits

• solves the information and resource imbalance endemic in franchising,
• takes less than 3.0 per cent of franchisees needed to start as shareholders,
• valuation of for-profit calculated annually (franchisees will clamour for 0.1% share in 5 years),
• allows innovators and early adopters to carry at first,
• focuses attention on a single, credible voice for franchisees that is respected because it is in the franchisor’s  self-interest to do so,
• shareholder anonymity balanced with managerial control (no one shareholder can highjack the agenda),
• accesses the most cautious investors (overcomes stigma of betrayals and organizational collapse),
• retains franchisee “equity” (for-profit franchisee corp. directly aims to support and increase re-sale value),
• prevents much of future franchisor opportunism: self-interest with deceit (franchisee cost avoidance),
• voluntarily shifts capital from franchisee’s “equity” (temporary, illusory) to group equity (real),
• more able to reform system rather than just legally fight and be forced to leave,
• facilitates: vendor programs, franchisee self-borrowing, stock purchase PADs, training, life:work balance,  buying/selling franchises,
• each franchisee is issued a membership in the attorneyless franchise network and a share in the for-profit corporation (one share),
• enables former franchisees to invest (if desired),
• strategically positioned to defend against private equity vultures,
• builds trust with shareholder group (external investments, reducing risks, development),
• accesses and retains expertise that dues-paying organizations cannot afford, and
• capitalizes on the fact that CDN, ON Court decisions have shifted economics on dispute resolution in franchisees’ favour.

Costs

• takes time, need for long-term perspective,
• 24 franchisee shareholders to start “risking” 2% of their cash they’ve made in the last 10 years,
• requires patient shareholders (no interest payable initially).

Nosestretcher alert, Barfblog and Maple Leaf Foods

BarfBlog: safe food from farm to fork is worth watching, as I have said before.

In Friday’s post, Nosestretcher alert: food safety is not simple, even if a $5 billion corporation says it is, Professor Doug Powell makes the following point about a key player in the Canadian grocery industry:

Memo to Michael McCain, CEO, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.:

You or your company, or both, really suck at this communication about food safety risk thing.

In the two years since your killer deli meats actually killed 23 Canadians with listeria and sickened another 50 o so, the best you can do is remind Canadians they should do more?

Prof. Powell, a transplanted Canadian microbiologist (and part-time goalie), goes on:

But if you really want to regain the trust of Canadians, like my parents, who were in Kansas the other day, and my father who said he’d never buy Maple Leaf again, here’s what you can actually do:

• make listeria test results in Maple Leaf plants public;
• add warning labels on deli meats for at-risk populations, like pregnant women and all those old people that unnecessarily died; and,
• market Maple Leaf’s food safety efforts at retail so consumers can actually choose.

Trust, honesty and information sharing:  Critical for consumers and franchise investors.

Every franchisee should have their own WordPress blog

Okay maybe one independent one per system per country.

You never know when you have to summon help.

Start here in the cheap seats, then here and then here as the momentum builds.

Without starting now, it’ll be too little too late to thwart the evil-doers.

Only one party in franchising that doesn’t want to talk to your peers.

I wonder what they know that you don’t?

[This Isn't Happiness]

How many franchisee advocates does it take to infect a whole system?

Depends on the skill and toxicity of the lone wolf.

It starts with a WordPress blog like one of these 18.

Franchisees have credibility, external experts do not

Just do it.

Seth Godin has post a good post on the human tendency to over-rate the importance of the beginner and novice stages.

The problem in The Myth of Preparation:

We diddle around in the novice stage because we’re afraid. We polish (but not too much) and go to meetings (plenty of them) and look for deniability, spending hours and hours instead of shipping. And the product, in the end, is not so much better.

Godin’s advice?:

Go, give a speech. Go, start a blog. Go, ship that thing that you’ve been hiding. Begin, begin, begin and then improve. Being a novice is way overrated.

Why not start your own 100% anonymous investor-focused WordPress weblog today? Infinitely less risky than talking to any attorney, especially one self-identifying as a “franchise law expert”.

Take a look at the latest from: JamesMasterLies.wordpress.com or review my Links page.

What’s better than one WikidFranchise?

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery isn’t it?

Last Saturday, somebody downloaded  some data from WikidFranchise.org.

Looks like, like, everything:

• 2,090 indexed documents,
• 9,676 pages,
• 9,681 hits, and
• 193.12 MB of bandwidth

Here’s a toast to information sharing and  innovation as WikidFranchise evolves and moves aboot.

Lap/watch dogs and the role of equity in franchisee groups

Evolve or die.

If I had a million dollars I would invest it in the franchise industry but not in a conventional sense.

Three types of groups:

1. Advisory Councils: There to give the illusion of participation and to reward collaborators. Lipstick on a pig.
2. Independent Franchisee Association, IndFA: one-vote, one-franchisee, subscription-funded, mostly short-term and knee-jerk reaction. Doomed to fail because membership penetration rate seldom above 15% nationally (aborts maturing of indigenous franchisee leaders). Great pre-trial cannon fodder for the class action franchise bar (only publicly traded targets). Only a tiny fraction of valid claims ever emerge from half-formed programs retarded by a constant burn-out of continuously begging franchisee cannon fodder leaders despite the initial Year 1 dues leveraging to 3 to 4 times for every franchisee. Fundraising ballbusting forces IndFAs into class action lawyer’s arms. A interim form of franchisee ghettoization for amateur organization men: strictly chop-down-the-orchard-for-firewood thinking. Underfunded at $1,000 a store.
3. Attorneyless Franchisee Networks: pay-as-you-go “common members” (min. $2,000 per year) plus “preferred equity holders” (ie. current franchisees, in and out of system, angel investors). Investing (pre-set ROI, timeframes) available to 100% current members one year after initial formation. Realistic budget for national: $500,000 over two years. Plant-an-orchard mentality where franchisee leadership development can continue long enough for self-governance to incubate. True franchisee control with consultants and lawyers as sub-contractors. Overcomes credence good cheating (legal and industry) by creating a market for second opinions. Power has shifted to less than 5% of franchisee involvement because of the internet and increasing levels of franchisor paranoia.

Franchisee collaborators or house negroes  should (but won’t) pay attention as they have the most (marginally) to lose.

Sleep lost by yours truly?

Zero.

Franchising: just another low trust industry

Seth Godin gets it right about social media.

He  diagnoses franchising’s vulnerabilities correctly In his latest post Lead with your glass jaw:

If you’re in a low trust industry (like car sales), a social media presence dramatically increases the opportunity people have to call you out, beat you up, tattle on you and flame you in public. If you have a Facebook page and people can YELL at you there, for all to see, it makes you vulnerable…

Videos are powerful tools

The human brain absorbs images much better than text.

This is a very good example to follow.

It takes more work than it appears but it is very useful.

Additional information on Blue MauMau: Franchisees Explain Why They Are Suing UPS.