Is Franchising Indentured Servitude?
Posted on April 22nd, 2009 johnhayes No comments Crazy Isabel called. Normally, Isabel isn’t crazy, but this morning — whew! She wants to buy a franchise. Has a pretty good idea which type of franchise she wants to buy, and she has the money — at least most of the money that she’ll need for a start up in this particular industry. She’s done some homework, with a little help from me, and she’s collected information from targeted franchise companies. Plans derailed? But today, she’s crazy (I mean that in a nice way, of course) because she read something that will derail her plans to buy a franchise. “If this is true,” she shouted, “I’d rather take my chances and start a business on my own.” She was screaming at me today! She read on some Web site that franchising is little more than “indentured servitude.” While talking to me — screaming at me, really — she said I should have told her that she’d be nothing more than a “slave” as a franchisee. “Why didn’t you tell me that?” she demanded t
