ABOUT.

We have over a decade of experience building and running a franchise company in the retail space. It was wonderful and a nightmare, all at the same time. And what made it all the worse is that we operated a very busy and successful company-owned location. Think carefully about hiring the right staff at the right time once you’ve decided to franchise, because running both operations can prove challenging. Our experiences with franchising are real and will help you. What Franchise Resource Hub offers is an invaluable first step that we wish we had. We believe it would have helped us make better and more informed decisions, some proving to be critical.

Despite some of the above, we did manage to find a few excellent operators, right out of the gate, but then we ran into trouble, which we spent many years and a lot money wrangling with. We did everything we could, in our start-up phase, to not spend money. We were small and independent with no big bank loans or corporate sponsorship, which in hindsight, was likely a mistake. If you’re starting a franchise business, taking a conservative business loan is not a bad thing and can help you take some of the pressure off of yourself and your company-owned location.

Additionally, we made the mistake of purchasing a “franchise package” from a consultation group in order to franchise our business, which was to include helping us define & develop our model, and most importantly, get it on paper. Our initial bad feelings about the company were realized the day we received a call from the United States Trademark and Patent Office, asking who our Trademark Attorney was, as they hadn’t been able to get anyone to return their calls from said franchise consultation group. The bad feeling worsened, to say the least.

Most of these “groups”, which cost $25,000 - $75,000 (and then get a cut of your royalties for some time), may not be experts in franchising or business, but have the road map on ‘how to’ franchise. They network out various aspects of getting your model franchised if they can’t handle it in their office, and many can not. This by no means captures every franchising business out there, but you do need to be careful and do your homework. The better franchise companies that have the resources and experience to get you from point A to across the finish line will cost you well over $100,000.

We aren’t recommending that you do it yourself. But we are recommending that you join Franchise Resource Hub for an extremely low fee, which will give you access to excellent information and a place to start thinking about if growing your business by a franchise model is right for your business. If you are going to be successful as a franchisor, you will need more than a few documents, some recommendations, and a savvy attorney, although these are the inital building blocks of franchise success.