Question: We’re a retired couple looking for where to invest our retirement money. We have been told of all sorts of fascinating stories about franchising like the Mini-Stop or 7-11 franchise. We decided to read a couple of books on franchising as well as attend seminars. Everyone was talking about success and how we stand to earn good and quick money. But most of the talk was about the franchise owner and how franchising was good for him. It’s assumed that “what’s good for the franchisor is good for the franchisee.†And we thought that doesn’t necessarily follow.
We’ve seen successful franchisees of course. But we’ve also seen franchisees who closed shops in less than a year. There have been a lot of closed lechon manok franchise stores, bake shops, donut kiosks, burger stands, shoe repair stores, and even Jollibee franchise stores.
We’re a regular reader of your column and when you diagnose a marketing problem, you always deal with both sides of the issue. Here, those two sides are the franchisor and the franchisee. So please tell us. For the prospective franchisee like us, is investing our retirement money in a franchise a sure success opportunity? What should we watch out for and be careful about?