Franchises

Can you start a Franchise with $600? Hmmmmm...... The founders of the Pizza Hut franchise did? In 1958 a pair of brothers from Wichita, Kansas, Frank and Dan Carney borrowed $600 from their mother to convert a 600-square foot bar into a pizzeria.

Within 10 years of the company's founding, the Carney brothers had grown their single outlet to over 300 stores. Just 19 years later it was sold to PepsiCo, which had also bought Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell.

Read the full story: Pizza Hut's Founding Brothers - Frank and Dan Carney

If you are serious about buying a franchise than you should take the time to do your homework before you make the jump into franchise ownership. Below are 5 Must-Read books that anyone interested in buying a franchise should read:

1. Street Smart Franchising - Joe Matthews, Don DeBolt, and Deb Percival
2. Franchising for Dummies - Michael Seid and Dave Thomas
3. The Educated Franchisee - Rick Bisio
4. Tips and Traps When Buying a Franchise - Mary Tomzack
5. The Franchise Fraud: How to Protect Yourself - Robert Purvin & Robert L. Purvin Jr.

Click Here to learn more about each book.

Last week we introcued you to Mary Tomzack, author of the widely read "Tips & Traps When Buying a Franchise" and Advisory Board Chair of FranchiseHelp.com. Mary has helped us identify the top 5 signs you aren't a born entrepreneur.  The first step in starting your own business or franchise is learning if you have what it takes! Below are Mary's 5 signs:

1. You have a hard time staying focused.
2. You expect overnight success.
3. You think the Internet is all you need.
4. You're obsessed with administration tools.
5. You have to spend money to make money - and spend it, and spend it...

To learn more read the full article here.

Mary Tomzack, is the author of the widely read "Tips & Traps When Buying a Franchise." She is also the Advisory Board Chair of FranchiseHelp.com, a leading resource for information on franchise opportunities and business opportunities. FranchiseHelp was recently named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the most useful sites for entrepreneurs.

Mary has just become a quest author for About.com and will be contributing some great articles!

Learn more about  Mary Tomzack

The Chick-fil-A franchise has made quite a bit of hay with its poor-spelling cows holding up signs trying to convince people to stop eating beef, saying "EAT MOR CHIKIN." But the company doesn't seem to think a variation on their tagline is all that funny.
 
Bo Muller-Moore, an artist from Vermont, has been boosting home-state farmers by producing T-shirts saying, "EAT MORE KALE." Chick-fil-A claims that these shirts' slogan "is likely to cause confusion of the public and dilutes the distinctiveness of Chick-fil-A's intellectual property... "We must legally protect and defend our 'Eat mor chikin' trademarks in order to maintain rights to the slogan." Muller-Moore calls it "corporate bullying."
 
The State of Vermont has about 625,000 people, not much more than Chick-fil-A's corporate headquarters city of Atlanta, and no Chick-fil-A restaurants.  Since the T-shirts are not being sold outside the State, they seem unlikely to eat into Chick-fil-A's profits.  (There are currently only three Chick-fil-A restaurants in all of the six-state New England region.)
 
Muller-Moore has rallied his home State to his cause: "There are certainly the purists and they think of kale as this superfood.  I think other people see it as more of this local food movement. I think, in Vermont, other people see it as a shirt printed by Bo down the road... I think I've given away enough stickers and shirts around here that Vermonters take this very personally."

Having become the world's largest hamburger retailer, and matching KFC with Chicken McNuggets, and taking on Starbucks with McCafe, now McDonald's is taking on perhaps the most powerful force in the world: Television.  And this time, not with new commercials.
 
The burger giant is about to debut McTV, a channel that will appear in their stores, with original content, covering news, entertainment, and sports, with an emphasis on youth sports.  This would dovetail with its history as a place where teams playing Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, youth soccer, et al. would go for a postgame meal.
 
Partnering with BBC America and California affiliates of ABC News, McTV will be tested in about 800 restaurants in California, in the hopes that it will succeed to the point where they can go national and global, to reach over 33,000 restaurants.
 
An in-house TV channel has already benefited Wal-Mart tremendously, and McDonald's is taking a chance that diners will stay in and watch, possibly ordering more food than they ordinarily would.  While this would seem to be a blatant attempt to make people buy things, especially fatty foods, that they don't need, it could also be viewed as a way to build communities, making McDonald's a mini-Main Street, at a time when so many of the old Main Streets are losing their retail clout.

Since nationally-broadcast news stories about bacteria in their beef that sickened several people, a rat-ridden store in New York, and accusations of using oats as filler in their beef, the Taco Bell franchise has spent the last few years burnishing its image.  While necessary, it has worked.
 
Through its parent company, Yum! Brands, which also owns Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut, Taco Bell has used new technology to get their message across.  When, earlier in 2011, the oats story broke on the social-media site Reddit, Yum! Used the home page on the Taco Bell website to directly answer its critics.  A link is provided to information that they "use the same quality of meat found in your local grocery store," that it's inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that it must further pass 20 "quality checkpoints" before it can be served.
 
Taco Bell has also been using the social network Twitter, both in a humorous vein and in a serious one.  Its Tweets have messages such as, "Don't touch my taco" and "No talking... I'm eating," but also this one: "Food safety is very, very important to us," and including a phone number and an e-mail address," showing that, much as Domino's Pizza did in a recent series of commercials, they are listening to and addressing customers' concerns.
 
Taco Bell appears to have taken the concerns and jokes about the various "Tacogate" stories personally, but also seriously.  In so doing, it has restored its reputation in spite of publicity that might have driven a less determined company out of business.

If you are a small business owner thinking about expanding your business through franchising, you will have to answer the quintessential question--Should I franchise? Franchising is a huge jump for business owners and not without its risks. If you only have one or two stores now, then that is a sure sign you are not yet ready to franchise. But if you have multiple locations and want to expand exponentially, get ready to dig in for the long haul, and review this quick checklist to find out if you are a good candidate for becoming a franchisor.

We have compiled The Potential Franchisor's Quick Checklist

1. How Strong is Your Budget?
2. How Efficient is Your Business?
3. Have You Done Your Homework?
4. Do You Have a Niche?
5. Are You Willing to Work?
6. Are You Willing to Listen?

Read the full article: Turning Your Successful Business into a Franchise

Using logic that only makes sense in the world of advertising, McDonald's has generated interest in its reintroduction of its McRib sandwich by running an ad campaign about how people are thrilled that the McRib is back.  And it's working.  But not everyone is happy over its return: The Humane Society of the United States is not.
 
The Humane Society has filed a legal complaint against Smithfield Foods, claiming that the company, which supplies McDonald's with pork meat, has gone far beyond what is considered fair treatment for animals that are raised for food.  The accusations include keeping the pigs in pens that do not offer enough room for movement, poor sanitation, and inattention to wounds and injuries.
 
Smithfield has released a statement responding to these charges: "We are proud of our unparalleled track record as a sustainable food producer and stand confidently behind our company's public statements concerning animal care and environmental stewardship"; and "any objective assessment of our practices would conclude that Smithfield and our employees are behaving in a socially responsible manner."

 
The charges are the kind that vegetarians and vegans have long made against meat producers, but McDonald's and other meat-based fast-food producers have managed to weather such storms before.  Since the McRib is usually brought back for a limited time only, this story may blow over.  But it may also lead McDonald's to look more carefully about where there food is coming from.

According to TheStreet.com, Facebook is teaming with the International Franchise Association to spur growth at small franchises in a challenging economy. Franchised companies are looking to grow, which means they are looking for ways to find prospective franchisees. Additionally, they want existing franchisees to connect more effectively with local customers, IFA president and CEO Steve Caldeira says.

"As a world leader in connecting people in a trusted environment online, Facebook's involvement with the IFA will help franchise businesses drive sales and create jobs," he says in a statement.

Facebook tools such as ad targeting and local "check-in" abilities can particularly help smaller franchises acquire and engage with customers. The social media giant says it wants to hear from franchisors and franchisees about their needs and respond with lessons on how to use the social media site for growth -- a continuation of efforts announced in September.

Starting next year, Facebook will also award $10 million worth of free advertising to some 200,000 local businesses through $50 worth of ad credits each.

Read More: Facebook Teams with Franchise Group