"16 years later everybody and their cousin is a so called franchise consultant"
Editor's Note: Joel Libava, known here as "Franpro", is one of Blue MauMau's earliest members and until just a few days ago was a franchise consultant for the Cleveland, Ohio area with FranNet, one of the industry's largest network of franchise brokers. He now heads his own franchise consultancy.
After a 6.5 year ride, I have left the Franchise Consulting group I was a member of, Frannet. My late father, Jerry Libava (pictured), was one of the original members, joining Frannet back in 1991. My Dad was in the corporate world for a stupid amount of years, traveling 4-5 days a week, almost all the time. His last "job" was as the Franchise Dev. Director of Physicians Weight Loss Centers , based near Akron, Ohio. The Federal Trade Commision came down hard on the diet industry in the late 80's, and Dad was downsized.He had a kid in college (Not me, I was learning things the hard way at the time), and normal debt like anyone else, but he said:
"Enough is enough! No more corporate America for me!" So he decided to get into business for himself. His business was called International Franchise Development, which he and my Mom named during a ride in the country. He started his business, found out about a guy by the name of Howard Bassuk , who was based out of San Diego, and he joined Howie with a few others. They were the pioneers of the Franchise Consulting Industry. Howie was the brains (Genius level),and 5 or 6 guys at the time were the brawn.
