Frugality rules spending decisions, so it’s no surprise that consumers are flocking to a cheap burger joint like Jack in the Box. Value hunting has become the norm, especially when it comes to discretionary spending. Even eating habits have changed.

The biggest critics of a franchise brand name come from two groups of people and neither of them are you customers. If our brand is lousy your customers will most likely simply not say anything, after all every day average brand names are a dime a dozen in the market place.

As a former franchisor and co-author of Franchising 101, I was asked by a publisher to write another book on franchising and therefore I had to come up with an outline and to a table of contents. Of course, the biggest question is; what should be in a franchising book to be of value to the reader? Indeed, it would need an introduction, acknowledgments, foreword, appendix, resources, index, but what about the meat in the middle?

Many think that McDonalds and Starbucks are very similar due to their branding strategies and number of outlets. Actually, this is not so. Many believe that McDonald’s success was much about the real estate and not the hamburgers, that is not exactly the entire case either.

Many small business owners dream of franchising their existing businesses. As a former franchisor, many of these individuals contact me through one of our websites. Most future franchisors do not really understand what franchising really is or how it really works, they just like the idea of taking their company nationwide and making lots of money.

Not long ago someone setting up a franchise system wondered and was unconvinced that the franchise model was indeed a successful concept. They wondered if Franchises have proved to be successful. Okay, so let’s look at this concept for a second shall we, as it is a good intellectual dialogue to discuss.

The other day a would be future franchisor emailed me and stated that people were hungry for opportunity, presumably because they were stuck in dead end jobs and unhappy with life, feeling trapped and feeling like their careers were nothing more than a dead end.

Often folks end up in jobs that are not really their calling, but due to events, family and bills they cannot change their current path. Sometimes decades go by before they get an opportunity to change the course. Some call it being stuck in the rat race, others succumb to the inevitable, justifying their choices and situation, but every once in a while something major happens, something that changes everything.