Humans have limits.
When demands go beyond those maximums, personal and family health suffers.
Divorce, children estrangement, depression: these are signs of people under dis-stress.
Franchise systems can evolve beyond human limits because of the relentless drive for greater profits.
There comes a time when franchisees must decide to protect themselves and their families even though it may cause some short-term discomfort.
This is best done from inside a competently managed independent franchisee association or network (IndFA).
It’s not a radical or confrontational idea, at all.
- 95% of what franchisee groups do improves the tradename’s value (no one partners has a monopoly on wisdom).
- It focuses attention and helps respectful communication for all stakeholders.
A well-managed group adds to everyone’s competitive advantage: it does not subtract from it.
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him. — Booker T. Washington
FranchiseFool.com 
Doesn’t the very nature of franchising work against an Independent Franchisee Association being the solution to prevent the brutal abuse of franchisees that is upheld under the bad faith terms of the written agreements?
The “united we stand” and “divided we fall” mentality doesn’t work in franchising, because as Richard Solomon of Franchise Remedies indicates:
“Do not expect your fellow franchisees to come to your aid, even if your problems are their problems too. They will let you hang out to dry and will practically never stand with you. They will betray any confidence in hope of getting better treatment for themselves. You are on your own in almost every situation in any franchise relationship.”
Additionally, if 50% of the franchisees fail out of business within five years, the 50% who haven’t failed and have thrived will consider that the 50% who have failed are a threat to the franchise system and will always stand with the franchisor in what they believe to be their best interests.
This entire scenario, apparently, is one of the goals of regulation, isn’t it?
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Carol,
You are correct that there is a natural human tendency to betray to curry favour with someone in power. But I have experienced that your interpretation is unduly negative in practice and theory, also.
There will always be free-riders and the vast majority of franchisees will only act from their selfish best-interests.
There is MUCH less hope in any external body or regulation acting to move a competitive agenda along.
I would much, much rather be working actively every day to protect my own interests (as a member of a group) than “hope” for someone else’s help.
Les
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Okay! But from my point of view, the original sin that resulted in t he FLAW of Franchise Regulation in the United States that, in turn, sets up prospective franchisees to buy unprofitable franchises that fail in great numbers needs to be exposed to the public.
There may be much less hope, as you say, (and as you learned by experience in your admirable work to change things for the best in Canada) to get the attention of government and the Congress to get fairer disclosure, but I feel compelled to keep on trying.
I don’t see where any of the Independent Franchisee Associations have tried to put pressure on the Congress by exposing the fatal flaw of the FTC Rule.
How can you change the relationship unless prospective franchisees begin to understand the “trickery” involved in the sale of franchises to the public? If more prospective franchisees understood the “score” so to speak, they wouldn’t sign these contracts from Hell to begin with.
I have written an Article that appears on Google, with the help of Ezine, that is entitled “Disadvantgages of Buying a NEW franchise for the franchisee: The Elephant in the Room” with the hope of reaching more prospective franchisees.
Isn’t there a difference between exposing “The Elephant in the Room” and trying to ride on “The Elephant in the Room?”
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Carol,
I believe that the problems of franchising continue and get worse because of the influence of institutionalized conflict professionals: lawyers of both “sides” (franchisee or franchisor).
Professionals make more money by keeping IndFAs separated and in their own tradename silos. They would be acting against their economic best-interests to unite franchisees from across brand names.
I agree: IndFAs are a useful mechanism but not 100% of the answer.
I believe franchising will continue in its own self-destructive path because it seems impossible to maintain the necessary monopoly on information that had allowed these abuses to start and grow.
Like all empires, with or without us Carol, it will collapse from its own rot.
Les
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Maybe the CIT failure and possible bankruptcy will expose some of the rot caused by bad policy that permitted churning and pumping and dumpng in the retail sector in past recessions as a “short term solution” to stimulating the economy.
Maybe this short term solution applied in past recessions is finally catching up and reality is setting in if the Mall failures and the problems in Commercial Real Estate don’t stop soon. And “soon” doesn’t seem likely.
The franchisors have always been successful with The Congress because of their premise (whether true or not) that franchising is creating most of the new jobs in the economy and no elected official will do anything that will reduce jobs in the economy.
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