Comments on: Trench warfare in the franchise field

By: David

David — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 22:53:42 +0000

This is an example of when a franchisor has to listen to the franchisee and act as a consultant rather than a dictator. The franchisor should have supported Rita in her ordering decisions because she knows her customers in her region more than the franchisor does.

By: Franchise Consultant

Franchise Consultant — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 21:07:42 +0000

There are thousands of franchises to choose from, but only a handful that truly deliver on promises. I love franchising, but sometimes think its success has been its downfall. Often the best franchises are the ones that are the least known. Many of the big name franchises are in the franchise sales business. They advertise, recruit lots of franchisees, get on the top franchise lists, but are more interested in selling franchises than building successful entrepreneurs. There are some, though, that do it right. They only accept a handful of franchisees each year and focus on building successful business people - not building a big namefranchise.

By: Scott Layer

Scott Layer — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:39:54 +0000

If you read the whole article at CNN Money you will read some comments from the franchisor.
Basically Rita’s does not really take responsibility. They don’t have to contractually. I hope, however that Rita’s rethinks how they treat Tish and other franchisees and move forward in a positive way.
I have been to Tish’s store numerous times. In fact, I visited her location during its third month of operations. I could see her overhead was way too high, but she was very hopeful. She had two of everything. Two mixers, two cash registers, two of everything. No doubt the store looks impressive, and she could handle a ton of business if it came through the door. However, this looks like another example of over promising and under delivering. Add to it some encroachment from a fellow franchisee less than five miles away and you end serving an Ice Cold business.
Franchisors all know that the honeymoon period is the perfect time to up sell. The devil is in the details, so before you buy a Rita’s make sure you get real numbers and know your territory extremely well. Record everything the Zor says to you and do not sign the contract if what is “said” does not match up to what is written.
In my opinion, Tish has done everything to curb expenses, she employs her family, she promotes her store aggressively and works a full time job on top of putting in 40 hours a week at her franchise. Not only did she end up buying herself a low or no paying job at Rita’s, she has also been forced to take a second job in order to feed her family. I also think Rita’s franchisees would benefit from an Independent franchisee association. I hope they look into it.