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Log In / Register | May 21, 2013

Members Blog Trade News

Caribou Coffee Chain Evaporates

Member | | Apr 18 | food
It looks like Caribou Coffee's 200 franchises will have to change the name on the ship's bow while battening down the hatches to weather more storms for the windswept brand. It's rough seas for the coffee battles. Caribou Coffee Co. Inc. will close 80 stores nationwide and rebrand another 88 under the banner of its corporate cousin, Peet's Coffee & Tea, in a restructuring that will cut the chain's footprint by more than 25 percent. – via Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal Don't worry, these coffee shop owner-proprietors are real men and women who hearken to their captain's call to swab that deck, hoist that sail, and ride the market's white caps on its gale-driven waves until Davy Jones' locker calls. Legend has it that on a...
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Tesla's CEO May Take Dealer Fight Federal

Member | | Apr 15 | legal
Tesla Motors has fought dealers in several states already for the right to sell its electric cars in company-owned stores instead of through franchised dealers. CEO Elon Musk has found the battles expensive, time consuming and stressful. "If we're seeing nonstop battles at the state level, rather than fight 20 different state battles, I'd rather fight one federal battle," Musk told Automotive News last week. [reporter Amy Wilson] Options include lobbying for federal legislation or a federal court lawsuit alleging restraint of interstate commerce, he said. Read the full article
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Franchise Small Business Admin Loans Equal Large Taxpayer Losses

Member | | Apr 9 | buy, franchising, legal
Journalists Lynn Hulsey and Ken McCall look into the world of franchising via Small Business Administration lending and uncover a universe of bad loans, shoddy underwriting practices and non-existent oversight.   Lending standards were so poor on SBA franchise loans that “Some borrowers in the Small Business Administration’s largest federally guaranteed loan program defaulted so quickly they paid nothing on the loan, the investigation found.” Working with SBA staffers, the writers were able to obtain “an accurate database of more than one million loans made since 1990 under the SBA’s 7(a) program” after having discarded multiple databases that were deemed “fraught with problems and inconsistencies." The results? Taxpayers subsidized...
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Starwood Plans More Billions in Hotel Sales

Member | | Apr 5 | hotel
Starwood wants to continue its move from owning hotels to being primarily a hotel manager, says CEO Frits van Paasschen. Starwood, parent company of the Sheraton, Westin and St. Regis hotel lines, finds managing hotels a better business than owning them. The company, based in Stamford, Connecticut, has been selling real estate to focus on operations driven by fees, which are less susceptible to economic slumps than revenue from owning buildings. Starwood is divesting assets and cutting costs to boost revenue and protect its investment-grade credit rating, which it regained in 2011 after being cut to junk when sales sank in 2009. [Zainab Fattah, Bloomberg] The company is seeking to increase hotel-management revenue to 80 percent of the total from 25 percent five years ago, the CEO...
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Fast-Food Workers Strike over Low Wages

Member | | Apr 4 | food
Today workers at McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and other fast-food restaurants staged a walkout in New York, calling attention to their plight against low wages. An NBC online new report stated that organizers scheduled the strike to commemorate the day Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated 45 years ago, where he was supporting a strike by sanitation workers.  Elba Godoy, a crew member at a McDonald's just a few blocks from Times Square, said her $7.25-per-hour minimum wage was not enough to support her extended family of seven. She and other are seeking $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. Godoy asserted, They don't like [that we're out here], but we have to do it. We cannot survive on $7.25. The article further states...
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Einstein Bros CEO O'Neill on Growing Brand

Member | | Apr 2 | food, manage
Jeff O'Neill is president and CEO of the Einstein Noah Restaurant Group Inc., which has around 800 restaurants under three bagel brands, the largest of which is Einstein Bros. Bagels. Here he talks about the company building market share by focusing on healthful offerings and convenient ordering systems. Fifty percent of orders are now handled online, he says, a convenience for customers. The company has enjoyed three years of over 20 percent growth.
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Tesla Seeks Changes in Texas Franchise Law

Member | | Mar 31 | legal
Tesla, the electric car maker, has scored victories this year against state automobile dealer associations who sought to prevent it from opening sales locations in Minnesota and Massachusetts, at least temporarily. Now it is working to change franchise laws in Texas so that the company can operate sales locations there. Presently the company is operating under Texas restrictions that one Tesla executive says is perhaps the most difficult in the nation for running its corporate-operated sales model. The auto maker feels that the usual dealer-operated retail outlet is not a viable one because dealers whose primary product are their gas-driven cars would be casting them in a poor light when they extol the virtues of the electric vehicles. That's not a reasonable expectation, says the...
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Turn Your Hobby into a Successful Business

Member | | Mar 28 | advice
How you spend your spare time relaxing could turn into a business, writes Jenny McCune at Bankrate. She gives six steps to consider in arriving at a decision on whether to turn your means of relaxation into an income stream. With the caveat that turning a hobby into a successful business is easier said than done, here are some steps to consider. First, ask yourself some basic questions such as: Is there a market? Will buyers pay enough to make it worth my while? What is the best method for selling and delivering my product or service? To answer those questions, do market research. Use sources such as your public library and the Internet. Quiz fellow hobbyists about your idea. If you have the funds, hire a consultant. Talk to would-be mentors or take a course to help...
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