Blue MauMau returns false First Opinions

Blue MauMau is like a laboratory that provides knowingly inaccurate readings.

How a problem is framed influences very much the potential treatment and outcome. Humans anchor on a conclusion, often inaccurately and that can be used against them.

The cheapest form of dispute resolution is to plant the seeds of hopelessness early on.

I have tried to provide honest reviews personally, here and at WikidFranchise in the last 11 years.

I cannot say the same for Blue MauMau (BMM) anymore.

I was absolutely pleased by the range of and depth of discussion at first on BMM. It seemed to offer real hope for a forum of real change.

Over time, I had a gut feeling that things were not what they appeared. I have contributed less and less over time as my private concerns grew.

I first asked on FranchiseFool, Is Blue MauMau Crooked? in September 2008.

• Curiously, no one from BMM (let alone Don himself) ever asked me why or attempted any defense.
• I’ve never been afraid of an open debate and have always returned every BMM telephone call I ever received.
• I found the BMM lack of interest in WikidFranchise.org to be noteworthy also. Dick Gibson from the Wall Street Journal reviewed it but BMM found it irrelevant?

The purpose of BMM is to confuse and misdirect the real causes of franchise failure.  Some directly (Dale Nabors, Bob Frankman, GBeany) shout down any new ideas on a digital platform while others act as apologists. The “blame the victim” mantra is unimaginative. The false near-religion that “pre-sale due diligence can look forward enough to predict and prevent franchisor opportunism” is an insult to any thinking former franchisee.

At best, the attorneys are silent when directly questioned. All three of them don’t seem to have their heart in it anymore.

BTW: Saying that you cannot earn legal fees in a certain jurisdiciton and are therefore somehow less biased is a moronic argument which is notable for its lack of assurance that: I receive $0 for any views or efforts made associated with BMM. What they offering is not legal opinions at all: a legal relationship (fiduciary duty, solicitor:client) does not and cannot exist because their is no contract between the internet reader and the lawyer.

The result is a thin gruel of half-truths, faulty rhetoric, thought-terminating clichés, and political science, served up to cool out the marks by producing a “hopeless situation“: for both individuals and groups of investors.

In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses. Marshall McLuhan

Maybe the originator of the phrase global village may know a thing or two about how technology is resisted by a dinosaur industry and the profitable delay by its social media contractors.

It is certainly not the first activity that has been captured by a U.S. $1-trillion industry that defends itself by any means available. But I may be entirely wrong in my conclusion that BMM is a digital house negro.

I am happy to debate anyone, anytime, in any credible forum.

I’ll let you know…

McLuhan and McAdvertising: All franchising franchises franchising

One of Canada’s greatest and most controversial thinkers was Marshall McLuhan.

WIRED magazine named him their patron saint; their Holy Fool.

Let’s look at only one of his quotes: All advertising advertises advertising.

Several obvious and not-so-obvious levels of meanings.

The most transparent meaning that McLuhan was trying to get across could be that:

• by producing something you are encouraging the promulgation of more of the same.

McLuhan just loved puns and word play. As primarily a verbal instructor, engaged in wordsmithing, maybe using his methods can test the merit of the close ties between the words “franchising” and “advertising”.

1. All franchising franchises advertising: certainly Bob Purvin has demonstrated with his analysis of Super Bowl advertisers that franchising feeds the advertising industry in a very direct and substantial way. Required concentration of brand marketing dollars is a hallmark of almost all franchise systems.

2. All franchising advertises franchising: The visible brick and mortar store can conceal the rapidly churning franchisee ownership to the public.

3. All franchising advertises advertising: All non-franchising businesses must take into account the unique ability for franchised chains to concentrate advertising and brand clout. In some vertical markets, non-franchised models are only niche and local players.

4. All franchises franchise franchising: The choice of distribution model is in itself promoted as a near de facto guarantee of less risk and higher ROI for investors. This is routinely repeated informally by salesmen although expressly denied in any written documentation.

McLuhan helped me understand the primacy of:

• the franchise relationship (the space/closeness, ties between) rather than the
• physical or visible logos or tangibles.

Franchising is not supported by stone like a Greek column: It is held in balance by tension between cables of words.

Its only permanence is based on the assumptions, language,  and lack of education of those unaware of its nature.

Deer: Are We Trade Show Activists?

A good question but a better one is:

Can we afford not to understand how we got roped into a losing deal?

I think you better Get Smart or you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of the next buffet.

• In confidence games, it’s a fact that more than 50% of the chumps are good for at least a 2nd fleecing.

I took a look at a trade show advertisement this week and the posting was picked up on Michael Webster’s weblog.

Anyone who contacts me is invited to join me in interpreting how a trade show works. Live.

It is a very sophisticated and well-thought out selling environment that is used to qualify candidates; economically but mostly psychologically.

Your lack of awareness of the dangers [ignorance?] is really your admission ticket.

The first step in protecting your family is education.

I’ll be relying on the Six “Weapons of Influence”: social proof, authority,commitment and consistency, reciprocation, liking and scarcity. Bring your copies. You’ll get a tutorial on not only the Science of Persuasion but on relevant cognitive biases (especially confirmation), The Tipping Point, behavioral economics, Theories of Unusual Events and Risk Homeostatis, heuristics (eg. human thinking shortcuts that usually help us but sometimes result in catastrophic errors) and 10 years of intense industry analysis.

Agenda

1. We’ll go over the basic confidence game role structure and process: house, roper, inside man, shill, chump, fixer, etc.
2. Why it is so critical to have independent legal advice before you sign (goes double for deals less than $20,000).
3. The selling value of comparing (anchoring) a new system with the best, most successful franchisor: McDonald’s.
4. What something called “Prospect Theory” has to say why you will stay in a losing business much, much longer than you could ever imagine.
5. Why you should only sign when there is an Independent Franchisee Association, IndFA present (versus the lapdog Franchisor Advisory Council).
6. We’ll decode the hidden messages within the marketing material (worked for an advertising design studio + Ivey MBA + McLuhan disciple).
7. I’ll explain the role of the current SME loan guarantee program.
8. Why Canada is a safe harbour for white-collar crime.
9. How this recession is shattering the conventional wisdom that franchises sell better, the worse the economy gets [HINT: new sales, now, are the worst on record].
10. Why the hook has to be planted in the male first.
11. How shame is invoked to silence particularly new Canadians.
12. Why exceptionally thorough pre-sale due diligence is much more limited than you think and could in fact increase your chance of business failure.
13. The role of the expert seminar.
14. Why the most rational and dodgiest should absolutely force a copy of Ontario’s franchise law into your hands.

All of these fraudproofing skills are entirely understandable, applicable to many situations and will last a lifetime. I was taught by the best.

In these days of Bernie Madoff, BIM, CitiGroup, etc., I don’t think you (or anyone you know in the traditional or new media) can afford to turn not to learn more about the Science of Persuasion and applied psychology.

Offer to Sellers: You can join us as well. I will gladly discuss my views in front of anyone, at anytime. These persuasion techniques have been proven scientifically and it’s time that more people understood how skillfully they are applied in franchising.

If I were in your shoes, I’d much rather guarantee us free rein rather than be seen to be resisting evaluation. That old hand-in-the-lens shot sells television shows but is, by its airing, basic proof of guilt.

Consumer education is good and only the fraudsters have anything to hide.

Cost?: Nothing

Just call me at 705-737-4635. Bring the whole family. les.j.stewart@gmail.com

PS: Do me a favour: Sign up to receive each new post (see top right, RSS feed). FranchiseFool is now read in 44 countries. Not bad for a single Canuck in one year, I think.

— UPDATED for Fall 2009

I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet

I’ll miss newspapers when they’re gone.

McLuhan said you didn’t read a newspaper, you step into one, like taking a bath.

President-elect Obama will be visiting Canada soon. The Toronto Star reports that CBC Radio is holding a poll to select some songs to give to the President as a gift from all Canadians (CBC shuffles Obama’s iPod).

Here’s one of our best. A quirky, abridged version but Is it possible to to hear too much of The Voice?

I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Democracy, Leonard Cohen

It’s coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel
that this ain’t exactly real,
or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin’
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
It’s coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery of change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.

It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate

Unused verse:

It ain’t comin’ to us European-style,
Concentration camp behind the smile;
It ain’t comin’ from the east
With its temporary feast
As Count Dracula comes strolling down the aisle. (source)

On Unsustainable levels of Debt: another perspective

There are many, many types of debt.

• Financial debt is really only a bit player in the rich theatre of human history. A necessary evil; a loutish relative sent to help us develop our patience and forbearance.

The recent obsession with financial debt overshadows and distorts culturally much more significant types of debt such as: ethical, debt to yourself, moral, educational, spiritual.

• Financial debt is a simple matter that is simply a child of contract law.
• This type carries NO moral or ethical weight, whatsoever.

Many franchise contracts carry into them a severe imbalance of economic and information power.

Some contracts are entered into with fraudulent intent.

Fusing imagination with a historical perspective may mean a different understanding of debt obligations. Some or all franchisee debt may prove to be:

1. repaid $1.00 for $1.00,
2. re-negotiated (certain % of claim),
3. unenforceable (a Court will not oblige repayment),
4. void (a conditions were not present for a valid contract to be formed), or
5. commercially forgivable (0 to 100%, it makes economic and career sense for the creditor not to pursue the debt).

Dr. John Ralston Saul [Wikipedia, quotes] pursues a number of topics in an extremely lively and interesting way in his book, A Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense, One Review: B+.

• Dr. Saul is a very accomplished and expansive Canadian author and philosopher. I had the great pleasure of meeting him in December 2008.
• I told him his writings (along with Galbraith and McLuhan) had ruined my perfectly good Ivey MBA. He seemed pleased.

Unsustainable Levels of Debt is one of Saul’s more delightful entries. By substituting the words “groups of franchisees” for the word “nation, countries or civilization”, you may find it an apt franchising analogy.

I will be returning to The Doubter’s Companion and taking the liberty of free riding on Dr. Saul’s approach and insights.

Selected Excerpt

National debts are treated today as if they were unforgiving gods with the power to control, alter and if necessary destroy a country. This financial trap is usually presented as if it were peculiar to our time, as well as being a profound comment on the profligate [adj 1 shamelessly immoral 2 recklessly extravagant] habits of the population. The reality may be less disturbing.

1. The building up of unsustainable debt loads is a commonplace in history. There are several standard means of resolving he problem: execute the lenders, exile them, default outright or simply renegotiate to achieve partial default and low interest rates.

2. There is no example of  nation become rich by paying its debts.

3. There are dozens of examples of nations becoming rich by defaulting or renegotiating.

This begins formally in the sixth century BC with Solon taking power in debt-crippled Athens. His organization of general default – “the shaking off of the burdens” – set the city-state on its road to democracy and prosperity. The Athens which is still remembered as the central inspiration of WESTERN CIVILIZATION was the direct product of a national default. One way or another most Western countries, including the United States, have done the same thing at some point. Most national defaults lead to sustained periods of prosperity.

4. The non-payment of debts carried no moral weight. The only moral standards recognized in Western society as being relevant to lending are those which identify profit made from loans as a sin. Loans themselves are mere contracts and therefore cannot carry moral value.

5. As all businessman know, contracts are to be respected whenever possible. When not possible, regulations exist to aid default or renegotiation. Businessmen regularly do both and happily walk away…

8. Debts – both public and private – become unsustainable when the borrower’s cash flow no longer handily carries the interest payments. Once a national economy has lost that rate of cash flow, it is unlikely to get it back. The weight of the debt on the economy makes it impossible.

11. Civilizations which become obsessed by sustaining unsustainable debt-loads have forgotten the basic nature of money. Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring abstract value. Unhealthy societies often become mesmerized by money and treat it as if it were something concrete. The effect is to destroy the currency’s practical value.

13. Does all of this mean that governments should default on their national debt? Not exactly.

What it does mean is that we are imprisoned in a linear and managerial approach which denies reality, to say nothing of experience. Money is first a matter of imagination and second of fixed agreements on the willing suspension of disbelief.

In other words, it is possible to approach the debt problem in quite different ways.

14. There have been changes which limit our actions in comparison to those of Solon or Henry IV, who negotiated his way out of an impossible debt situation in the early seventeenth century and re-established prosperity..[discussion not relevant to franchising but he takes a shot at money market managers]

– [my definitions and emphasis]

A franchisee frequently owes the following entities:

1. themselves,
2. relatives (near and far),
3. employees,
4. government (federal, state, municipal),
5. franchisor,
6. financial institution,
7. suppliers, and
8. professionals and others (lawyers, accountants, consultants).

Both the lender and the creditor took a risk in advancing funds, or goods and services on credit. Most of the creditors have much more experience in business than the franchisee.

If, as Saul mentions, that loans are mere contracts and carry no moral weight, why should most franchisees pay themselves last?

Contempt: This shoe’s for you

I was not aware that throwing a shoe was such a sign of contempt.

May I suggest that franchisees that want to send a message, simply leave a single shoe for their:

• regional rep,
• franchisor,
• lawyer,
• banker,
• supplier, etc.

Believe me, the word’ll get out especially if you take a photo of it! Why leave all the fun for the drug dealers?

• Also, It is an Irish superstition that if you want to sell your house, just burn an old left shoe.

I doubt anyone will take it with as much class as President Bush did. They’re no leaders, I can assure you of that. Let’s look at that slow motion footage again, Bill.

The future masters of technology will have to be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb. Marshall McLuhan

Franchisees: master storytellers caught in a literate machine

Franchisees have primarily retained their geographically-specific, oral culture. As a species we have survived because of our ability to listen to and tell stories (a narrative), appropriate to a specific narrowly-defined physical landscape.

• We’ve never needed to be that smart at rational decision making, especially if time and complexity are added.
• We’ve evolved to look for dangers in certain places only.

The most vibrant research is coming out of the fields of behavioral finance, social psychology, law and economics, neuroeconomics, etc.

• Basically, we walk around scratching ourselves with a belief that our rational brain (neocortex) is in charge, while in fact, 90% of what we do is caused or strongly influenced by our reptilian brain or the limbic system. [We think Spock is in control but we behave as if we're Lucy Ball.]

Mankind has evolved primarily as a member of tribal structure within a hostile natural environment. Only since the industrial revolution,  has a phonetic alphabet gained its ascendancy in the West.

Our culture (Literate Man) views oral or tribal civilizations as more primitive, backward. Voltaire’s Bastards worked very hard to stuff the native genie in the bottle and they were extremely successful in doing so. There were some unintended consequences (externalities) though with this world view: slavery, theft, genocide, arms race, environmental collapse…

The printing press was the technology that revolutionized Western civilization. It brought with it many impressive and life-enhancing benefits. These, through a rational, Literate Man’s eyes, make them superior to the older, oral traditions.

The Gutenberg Galaxy (phonetic literacy) is an infinitely repeatable, homogenous and repetitive juggernaut. Franchise agreement is an example of an archetypal, industrial revolution machine. It is a colonial instrument intended to be used to control the savages (see indentured service).

A new technology (electronics) came along and now we in the West are in a postliterate age. And this scares the hell out of the self-identifying rational Supermen (ie. the franchise bar). They can hear the drum beats over at Blue MauMau.

• All the franchisees have to do is to cast off their own blinders and assume their rightful leadership role via internet information sharing.

We know how to flip the switch, notwithstanding the huffing and puffing.

— Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin

McLuhan: The Oracle of the Electronic Age

The content of any media is of secondary importance. The telephone, television, (ie. anything that extends man’s abilities) and business format franchising massages you.

I study the consequences of franchising like McLuhan studied the effects of media.

A great little smorgasbord of McLuhan’s catholic interests. Click Number 12 for an excellent short interview. (Listen how in 1966 he explained the internet, electronic knowledge.) Understand something so you know how to turn off the button.

Franchising as a man-made vortex

By studying the pattern of the effects of this huge vortex of energy in which we are involved, it may be possible to program a strategy of evasion and survival.

Out of maelstrom of your ingenuity. It was easy wealth; got at a terrible risk. The evening seas swallowed my brother. With all hope lost… I abandoned my doomed ship. Thus did I free myself from oblivion.

My rescuers were old mates of mine. And yet they would not believe that my experience had been real.

I’ve told my story many times since and no one has ever believed me. Now I have told it to you. But I do not expect you will show any more faith.

• McLuhan’s Wake, National Film Board of Canada

Is Blue MauMau crooked?

This is a very good question. And I admit I do not know the answer.

Here is a video that proves a description of bluemaumau.org‘s  stated mission. Take a look at the video an then the site (over some time) and see if they’re “walking the talk”.

I know that I am not in the inner circle of BMM experts and that they converse quite regularly offline.

• Internet information sharing is a very large concern for Big Franchising. The point men are the Franchise Bar and especially the  self-appointed Alpha Male franchise lawyer.

They are extremely sensitive about their image. Try showing up to one of their trade shows with a national television network film crew. The industry has very long memories and insists on everyone goosestepping to the same beat.

I see no reason why BMM should be given a pass.

There have been other websites before that tried to be independent but found it economically impossible to do so. It’s called being black-balled, folks. Same goes for journalists.

Any questions and it’s called a CLM (career limiting move). The tactics are the same as those used by Big Tobacco.

• The franchise industry is well-known for punishing anyone that raises too many questions or interferes in any way with their selling efforts (ie. sue advocates into bankruptcy, withhold referrals or destroy careers).
• On the surface, anyway, this would make BMM Public Enemy #1.

And even if Blue MauMau was doing the staus quo’s bidding (breeds disinformation and confusion, public flogging of irrelevant small-time weasels), does it really matter?

• My experience is that what is going to happen, is going to happen. The mechanics are bigger than any rear-guard defence strategy.

Either way,  some valuable lessons can be learned but I should caution: The greatest lies are always told in silence.

In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.
Marshall McLuhan

People need to think of themselves as unmanaged, independent and free, if they are to be controlled with maximum success.
John Kenneth Galbraith

These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
Abraham Lincoln [discharged bankrupt shopkeeper]