DEAR FRANNY: My business is growing like crazy and it looks like the best thing for me to do is to actually franchise it. I have begun all of the technical steps to make this happen but as someone who has experienced the ugly side of franchising. (I've been an abused franchisee.) I feel strange about it.

Matthew Shay, in a surprise move, resigned as President and CEO of the International Franchise Association on March 17, leaving online observers of BlueMauMau to ponder the future of the IFA and the organization's readiness to find a replacement.

Recall that I recently posted a series of questions to experts in franchising--Richard Solomon, David Azrin, and Craig Slavin--concerning the “current reality” faced in the industry.

 Are hybrid franchise models a portent of the future of f

ranchising?

I am curious whether anybody in this community knows of hybrid franchise models in operation, and what sorts of challenges franchisors or franchisees have encountered in them.

Most businesses today have their fiscal year-end match with calendar year-end and if you are a franchisor or franchisee leader you’re probably finishing up right now on reviews, assessing your progress on goals, and thinking about starting the planning cycle all over again. I refer to this process as a “business spiral” because one thing is ending, one is starting, and there is a transition between the two. For a lot of business executives—people who have an active working style with hundreds of emails, numerous meetings, and countless conversations on a daily basis—this transition time can be a shock to the system, an uncomfortable period of ambiguous non-activity, and something to “get through” as quickly as possible.