The State of the Industry: Franchising Today

• Appearance of government oversight
• Arbitration, secret
• Assuming a busy store is a profitable store can be very dangerous
• Attempts to rehabilitate image
• Bait advertising
• Be your own boss
• Betrayal
• Cat's-paw
• Caveat emptor canard
• Celebrity endorsement
• Code of ethics, a joke
• Company man
• Conflict of interest
• Deceptive business practices
• Development deal hype
• Disclosure document: best franchisor selling tool
• Disclosure laws do not reduce fraud
• Economies of scale promise
• Excuse du jour
• Fair weather friends
• False earnings claims
• False success claims
• Franchisor changes personal names
• Fraud mushrooms when regulation is dropped
• Fraudulent misrepresentation
• Gosh, we've never heard of that problem
• Half-truths
• Hidden agenda
• In business for yourself, not by yourself
• It's not about the money
• Mask of respectability
• Perception of lower business risk
• Potemkin village
• Private detective used
• Survivability (franchisee and franchisor)
• Unintentional franchises
• Vacuum of information favours dominant party
• Veil of secrecy
• We have no franchisee failures
• Wolf in sheep’s clothing