I was floored recently when I talked to a friend of mine about the franchise she bought. You see this wasn't what  I would call your "typical" franchisee. Jane (as I will call her for the sake of this blog) has been in the franchise consulting business for 25 years. She has trained and taught both franchisees and franchisors about what to look for in a franchise, how to run a successful franchise business and what makes franchisees successful. 

Read More

"YOU ARE DOING WHAT!? That's the question we heard most when we told our friends and families that we were franchising a Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids," says Janon Otto CEO of Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids Franchising - as well as a multi-unit franchisee for Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids. "They would also ask us what franchising is, and if we had gone crazy! Looking back, it's obvious that although there are franchises all over the place, most people have no idea what a franchise is. That's why the Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids franchising toolkit (available below) is so important. It really helps explain what franchising is, as well as the advantages of owning your own franchise business."

Read More

I recently attended a webinar with one of the largest franchising financing lenders in the United States. I would like to explain all the graphs that they showed us but the bottom line was this: all the signs point to the next recession hitting sometime in the next 24 months. 

• Credit Card debt and margin buying of stocks are back to record levels.
• The small business optimism indicator  is at record levels (this is a contrarian indicator). 
• Retail rents are at extreme levels causing over building, even though demand is decreasing  for retail space! 

Read More

There has possibly never been a better time to start a franchise business, ever. Not only is the franchising model proven, but with a pro-business administration in Washington, the regulatory, and tax environment, along with consumer spending power has never been better! Please don't take my comments as a political endorsement of any politician or political party. I simply think that the facts stand on their own.

Read More

When I was a Stock Broker, we would always start one place when we were looking for companies to invest in - and that was at the top! Of course we had certain qualifications that we looked for in management teams, but we always, without fail, looked at their level of education. Read More