franchise's - Good or Bad idea?

paulwf

joeypesci wrote: »

I have no direct experience but to say a mate of mines mate, brought a MC D's franchise and had to work really hard for a few years before he could start relaxing on the money.

Also, where I now live there is the local small subway shop that appears to be franchised (was a piece about the guy recently I think in local paper). From that small Subway store he now owns another bigger store close by and another big store out side of the massive Tesco. So another one where it seems to have paid off. But I'm pretty sure it's a lot of hard work for the first few years.

I think you've hit the nail on the head...you have to work every bit as hard as if you were starting up a new business and that means a lot of hours. In fact you have to work harder than with an independent business as you can't slope off early or let standards slip as head office could find out plus customers have high and uniform expectations.

The issues with franchising mainly come where someone thinks they can put in a lump of money, sit back and then rake it in for the forseeable future. There generally isn't enough profit to pay for a franchise fee and to run the business hands off, but if you run it hands on it can work well.