Thankfully, minority progress in America is moving forward at a rapid pace. When I first started to practice franchise law forty five years ago, immigration was extremely limited - not the waves that it is today - and black entrepreneurship was in its infancy. For the first half of those 45 years, black inroads into franchising was hardly worth mentioning. Selling a franchise to a black investor meant that the location of the franchised business was always going to be in a tough neighborhood.

The same may be said for immigrant inroads into franchising, except for Asians, Pakistanis and Indians in convenience stores. They thrived on those businesses, and their next generations went to medical schools, law schools and into banking and real estate development. Idi Amin Dada did us a big favor by expelling the Indian middle class from Uganda. They came here in droves. They were all excellent business people, and we received a big shot in the arm in the world of franchising, especially in motels. While I hate to wish for the imposition of hardship on the undeserving, anything that drives hoards of excellent business people to America bestows great blessings upon us and, eventually, upon them as well.

The significant advent of blacks to business ownership and franchising is, in my opinion, due mostly to their producing an educated and hard working corps of young potential entrepreneurs. That is now becoming a wave, and black entrepreneurship is a treasure trove of good fortune for them and for the American community.

We are now considering a black man for the Presidency of the United States. The wave of pride that will instill in the black community should produce a new era for black entrepreneurship.

Black men and women who fit the profile of a competent small business investor will end outmoded notions of tokenism and affirmative action. Blacks will soon come to think of affirmative action as an embarrassment as they show the world that they are capable of achievement, just like that of Barak Obama. To me, that announces a truly great day in America. Welcome aboard.

But with that achievement comes the exposure to small business investment fraud that is now an epidemic in franchising. There is a need to get over being happy that franchise companies are now willing to deal with you. What is required now is resistance to sharp franchising practices. Under the guise of being believers in equal opportunity, charlatans will attempt to fleece black investors just as they do with white and immigrant investors. Your financial and experience capabilities qualify you to become a franchisee. You are a target.

All the franchise fraud tutorial articles on FranchiseRemedies.com apply with even greater emphasis to black investors. They apply with greater emphasis because you don’t want the terrible pain of having to go back and restart at square one, having been fleeced of everything you own and drowning in residual debt for leases and business start up loans. Because of your justified pride in having achieved what you have achieved, your pain will be worse than that of others.

You need to use pretext contacts to an extreme degree. By that I mean that you need to investigate buying businesses that are for sale by present owners. As a potential buyer, upon signing a confidentiality agreement, you will get to see the tax returns and banking records that will tell you more of the truth about what the business is like that the franchise salesman is telling you is the best thing since sliced bread. Failure to investigate the resale market for any franchise in which you are interested is a terrible due diligence mistake. It is a mistake that most franchise investors make because they don’t invest in competent pre purchase due diligence assistance. It is only one of the pre investment mistakes they make, but it is often a killer because it has the potential to reveal realities about how the business really works.

Investment fraud is an equal opportunity industry. There is as much delight in defrauding a black investor as there is in defrauding any other person with money. Pecuniam non olet. Money has no smell. Stealing yours is as wonderful to the crook as stealing anyone else’s.

What you need to understand is that you are the only resource available to prevent yourself from being scammed. The government is absolutely useless as a protective resource. The government doesn’t regulate franchising, even though there is a veneer of government regulation that is more useful in fleecing the innocent than anything else. People are led to believe that there are government protocols that prevent fraud. That is absolutely ridiculous. It is open season on any franchise investor today. You have to take charge of protecting yourself against fraud in the purchase of any small business, franchised or not. If you fail to do that, you will find yourself with no effective remedy. There is a remedy, but it is more expensive than you will be able to afford. For all practical purposes, you have to act as though there is no remedy for you. You get it all sorted out before you sign the contracts or you are dead meat. “How do I get out of this franchise?” is merely a rhetorical question. Contracts are enforced against you because you are a grown up and you signed them. That’s where every franchise dispute starts. The burden will always be on you, and carrying that burden will always be extremely expensive – more than you will be able to afford.

Be aware that we have already had a substantial experience in courts where the franchisee was black and claimed that there was a civil rights violation of some kind in the mix of complaints. That has not worked to provide extraordinary remedies for minority fraud victims. You will be as disadvantaged as any fleeced franchisee who is not a minority.

Sadly, you are not paranoid if they are really out to get you. In seeking a franchise to buy, you must assume that they really are out to get you.