Business View Magazine - April 2016 71
chise giants like Subway, McDonald’s or Century 21,
while they represent the majority of the total franchise
locations in the U.S., only represent a small fraction
of the total number of franchise opportunities in the
marketplace today. The average franchise company is
much smaller, with 100 – 200 locations.”
Are there any other companies that do what you do?
“There are a couple of small direct competitors out
there, but we consider anyone that provides any kind
of franchise information to be a competitor – some-
body like Entrepreneur Magazine which does its an-
nual ‘Franchise 500,’ or the many franchise websites
out there. There are probably a hundred different fran-
chise websites and directories, many of which offer
some sort of “top franchise” ranking. Almost all these
rankings are complete rubbish. Their rankings are sim-
ply a pay-to-play advertising model, or based on the
size and/or perceived success of the franchise com-
pany.
“But the size of the brand really tells you nothing about
the success of their franchisees, or how happy they
are with their franchise business, or if they are actually
achieving their goals and making some money. That’s
something that is unique in what Franchise Business
Review provides, because there are lots of very large
brands in the franchise world that appear to be suc-
cessful, but they churn through lots and lots of fran-
chisees. If you think of XYZ franchise that sits on the
corner of Main Street – that business may be there for
ten or fifteen years and you think, ‘Oh, it must be very
successful; it’s been there a long time.’ But what you
don’t know is that it may have churned through three
or four different franchisees over that time frame and
the corporation just resold it to somebody else who
lost their shirt in the business, and then somebody
else came along, bought it again, and tried, and it
failed over and over again. But the location stays open
because it’s a new owner that comes in. So, just be-
cause a business has been around for a long time and
a brand is large and appears to be successful, doesn’t
necessarily mean that the franchisees are successful.
“Franchise Business Review is the only company that
ranks franchise opportunities based on the actual ex-
periences and success of the franchisees. These are
the people that have invested their life savings into
their franchise business and have everything on the
line – they are the real franchise experts!”
Is there anything that you’ve done recently or plan-
ning for the near-term future that will impact the
way you do business?
