VIDEO: Interesting video interview on the Today show with Ann Curry about franchises. It features an interview with a Just Dogs Gourmet franchise owner and the painstaking process of finding money and buying a franchise.

Rieva Lesonsky, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine, gives the best franchises, the superior franchise success rate, etc. Looks like this was two or more years ago. Entrepreneur's best franchise picks were:

#5 UPS

#4 Jackson Hewitt

#3 Quiznos

#2 Curves

#1 Subway

This is turning out to be a classic article to help the franchise buyer check their emotions at the door and to contemplate does this franchise that they so want to buy now make sense for them (or even cent$)

 Franchise workshops, classes that lay out the basics of selecting, buying, financing and running a franchise, are becoming more popular. The StartUp Journal looks into them.