Marrying Your Franchisor

please listen to Solomon's post above.

He has given you such great wisdom here, and I am a former franchsee that wants to stand up and tell all of you potential zees and those that are in trouble that this is the best advice you will ever get - and it was free.

And, no, I am not on Solomon's payroll, but I have "been there and done that" and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying for the experience.

I have experienced the pain of litigation, going in thinking we were going to win because our opponent was so clearly "wrong", and finding out it just does not work that way. I have had process servers show up at the front door of my home at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning because the other side so wants to use the power of intimidation. 

Many franchisors have their own team of attorneys (either in house or out) that are experts on the franchise agreement and how to enforce it.  Once you get into the courthouse, you will see all kinds of motions and arguments that are about the legal system, not about your case. You get to pay for those.

You also need to consider that once you are in litigation, any negotiations you have been involved in with employees of the zor are over.  Many times, the zor turns the case over to its attorneys, and you will not see the zor employees again unless you are in the courthouse.

It is a roller coaster of emotions that will tax the sanest of folks, especially if you are trying to run your business (which may be in trouble) at the same time you are trying to figure out the legal process.  Most of us are not prepared for this kind of pressure.  You get through it one day at a time.

When you hire the right lawyer, the one that knows what is going to be thrown at you, some of the stress can at least be blunted with information. If the attorney is any good, they will have you well prepared for the enormous barrage of legal complexity that will be coming your way.

If you are going into battle, go with the best. Do not think that your family attorney, whom you have known for 20 years, is equipped to take you into war because you trust him or her.  If they really care about you, they will talk you into hiring an expert.

In a culture where you are "nothing" when you have no money and where "money" is the one great value of the country that we all agree on, the damage that is done to the psyche of the failed and failing franchisee cannot be underestimated. The trip from somebody to nobody is a river of pain and it is true that marriages are destroyed and health is ruined because a failing business is long-term stress and strain that few survive without deep and lasting scars.

We see in the suicide of Bob Baker of Quiznos how he was worn down and beaten, after fighting in court for years, by the forces and the law of franchise contracts that has nothing to do with fairness and justness to begin with. He knew he was defeated and he was sick in body and spirit and when ordered to "arbitration" in which the ZOR always wins, he had nothing left to fight for or to fight with.

In retrospect, the franchisee always understands that they should have done better due diligence. But! franchisees enter into franchise agreements with great "good" faith that they will be successful and as Richard Solomon warns so often, they don't know the hard and dirty game that they will be playing. They don't know that the odds are stacked in favor of the franchisor and that federal regulatory policy supports the franchisors, and that in the big picture, they are merely logs on the fires of developmentr in the economy to serve the "greater good."

I have great respect for Richard Solomon whose hard truth is hard to take. But, yet he tells the truth. Sometimes, the best hope for the ZEE who has been cleaned out or who is facing failure is to declare bankruptcy and start again sooner rather than later.

Maybe a FREE check with a Debt Counselor like Jim Herst who posts on Blue Mau Mau helps to chart the escape ----but delay often only compounds the problems for the ZEES and compounds the pain for them and their families.

The constructive fraud of our public policy and regulation that permits ineffective regulatory policy that allows franchisors to sell unviable frasnchise products to the unsuspecting public is the real problem that needs to be addressed.

Zee's are left in the state of desperation. Many have never been in this situation before. It boils down to how is someone whose never been put in a situation that looks hopeless deal with it? They feel violated to the ultimate degree. Unless you are in this situation or experience something like this you never really understand. It is like when a women is raped do you understand to the fullest what has happened to her? You have to be put in that situation before you understand it. The zee has been lied to and no longer trust the zor. Remember whose money was lost. What I've learned is the zor tells the zee he or she has their own business. Another lie. In reality it is the zor's business other wise why would the zor have a one sided UFOC? Only winners in a franchise is the zor and the lawyers!!!

"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché."

"The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis."

"Totalist language then, is repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon, prematurely abstract, highly categorical, relentlessly judging, and to anyone but its most devoted advocate, deadly dull: in Lionel Trilling's phrase, "the language of nonthought."

"For an individual person, the effect of the language of ideological totalism can be summed up in one word: constriction. He is, so to speak, linguistically deprived; and since language is so central to all human experience, his capacities for thinking and feeling are immensely narrowed."

and

"The totalist environment draws a sharp line between those whose right to existence can be recognized, and those who possess no such right."

- Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Robert Jay Lifton

http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/
brainwashing19.html#Loading%20the%20Language

Les Stewart

It is obvious. First I would do the sniff test. Take my time. Never listen to the Zor because they have their main interest at hand. Wait a year to get to know what the Zor's company is really about. It like considering marrying someone that you do not know. Signing a franchise agreement is a commitment. If the partner is bad and abusive you are stuck. They make it difficult to divorce them. If I had known what I know now I would have never married into the franchise concept. It is too one sided. In the beginning they only show you their good side. After you sign you have signed your life away. Anything that is assoiciated with Quisno's or their former has been's would tell me never to do business with them. Never, never invest in any franchise unless you know them to be ethical and are looking for you to be a success. (Like they said in the beginning if we are not a success they wouldn't be successful too.) This is a lie. They don't care if you succeed. They are in the business of selling franchises and not making people successful. They already have your money and they will proceed to say "Next!" Any fitness concept is a bad investment. There is just not enough people to support your business that are disciplined. Franchise lawyers are very busy these days. That is why I know many people are hurting like me. Our only hope is those that are hurt will fight and get the government to make new laws to protect the investor from all the lies bad zors tell us to entice us to sign. The key is stop the people who are hurting people.

I certainly agree that there would be some really effective relationship legislation if all franchisees would kick in 27c a day to buy the ear of the Congress.

First, however, I think that the FTC should clean up the UFOC and make the franchisors disclose the known performance statistics of the units in the network.

But, in the relationship issues, it is about organizing. And, in the nature of the contractual relationship, the relationship is designed to mandate that the franchisee deal one-on-one with the franchisor who has dealt himself all of the aces.

It is only lately that Franchisors realize that they may have to recognize ZEE Associations but the ZEE Associations are still bound by the contracts of adhesion that their members have signed. The whole idea of franchising is to avoid unions and protect the capture of cheap labor and capital that maximizes profits for the franchisor.

It's a catch 22. You ought to read "Beguiling Heresy" which is where I get a lot of my truth!

I was never aware of the $.27 fund when i was a franchisee -- what would that be again? does it exist?

Did it ever occur to you Paul that perhaps most franchisees are busting their arses to keep their heads above the water and have neither the time nor the aptitude to organize such an endeavor?

Your comments have always been cogent - you lost me on that one.

Sleep Tight.