Today's news for the franchise & small biz owner

National Public Radio's State of Affairs program for the University of Louisville's station, WFPL, rebroadcast on Monday a 50-minute interview about buying a franchise with experts Dr. Wayne Jones of the University of Louisville, who teaches a franchising class; Otis Brown, a UPS franchisee; Thom Crimans, a local FranNet franchise broker; and Billy Fox, Jr., founder of the J. Gumbo's Down Home Cajun Cookin' franchise. Here are a couple of excerpts from the show:

Q: Are banks more apt to finance a franchise?
A: "They [franchise systems] have a more proven track record. Most small businesses, especially the restaurant business, may have a 90% failure rate as opposed coming in with a plan and experience behind you. - Billy Fox, Jr., founder of J. Gumbo's Down Home Cajun Cookin' franchise

Q: Is there a personality profile of someone who does well?
A: "In franchising, you have to be a people person. People skills are important...." "If you are a consummate entrepreneur, you will be in constant conflict with your franchisor." - Prof. Wayne Jones, University of Louisville, teaches franchising

Editor's note: Blue MauMau wants to thank the producer of WFPL's State of Affairs program for sending us this program and giving permission to publish it.

Here is a sad tale of a franchise leader gone nuts. To help us discuss the franchise owner leadership lessons in Moby-Dick, Mr. Blue MauMau speaks with Dr. Beth Schulz, professor emirita of English and Art History at the University of Kansas and Shaun Higgins, CEO of Movies for Business.

The ship Pequod, which Ahab captained, was a business within a business, much like running an individual franchise that operates within the business of a franchiser. And at the time Melville wrote Moby-Dick, America was in the height of being the world's leader in whaling for oil, much like the bulk of the world's major franchisers is centered in America today.

Yet, despite all the ships coming back to New England laden with lucrative whale oil to fuel the economy, Captain Ahab's ship met with disastrous results. Here is a discussion of Moby-Dick and its leadership lessons that franchise owners can learn from a scholar and business consultant.

Length - 14:15 min

Other resources:

• Moby-Dick book review
• PRI’s entire Moby-Dick radio broadcast (22:38 min)
• PRI’s Studio 360, American Icon, Moby-Dick
• Famous quotes from Moby-Dick
• Wikipedia on Moby Dick

KFC's first franchisee, a master franchise group called Harman Management Consultant, speaks on how to keep managers. Restaurant managers and assistant managers that stay on between 17 to 20 years? And the name card shows the uncommonality of this Master Franchise of some 325 units, KFC's largest master franchise. It shows a mission statement that says, "To provide a caring culture of service, success, and ownership." Blue MauMau speaks with Jay Alexander, Operations Liaison. Here's their secret (in mp3 format for your Podcast library).